Short answer first: buy from sellers who publish verifiable numbers — gram weight, bead count, resin grade, return window and a real business address — and who answer specific questions in writing. Avoid anyone whose pitch rests on adjectives. Before paying, run the same ten-point checklist every time: origin stated, weight stated, grade described in behavioural terms (float / half-sink / sink), photos in natural daylight with the item on a scale, written return policy, secure payment with buyer protection, CITES documentation for cross-border shipments, and a price that isn't arithmetically impossible. The rest of this article explains why each one matters.
Updated 2026-10-13 · Wubaiyi Agarwood (伍佰艺沉香), Hainan plantations & Beijing flagship store
Key takeaways
- Any listing lacking gram weight should be treated as unknown-grade, whatever its label says.
- "AAA", "Grade 1" and similar are not standards. Ask what happens in water instead.
- Do the price-floor maths: if the claimed grade costs more per gram than the asking price, the claimed grade is fiction.
- Insist on buyer-protected payment and a return window of at least seven days after delivery.
- For cross-border shipments, ask about CITES permits before paying, not after customs contacts you.
| Channel | Typical experience | Main risk |
|---|---|---|
| Specialist agarwood retailer with a physical location | Written specs, real advice, accepts returns | Narrower selection, usually higher prices |
| Brand direct-to-consumer site | Best prices-to-quality ratio; accountable | Varies enormously in honesty — check the address |
| Large marketplace (general-purpose) | Huge selection, cheap, fast | Almost no verification; where most fakes are sold |
| Live-stream / social selling | Entertainment, apparent bargains | Pressure tactics, no meaningful recourse, sealed deals in DMs |
| B2B wholesale platforms | Real volume deals exist | Samples are often better than shipped lots |
Ranking, honestly: specialist retailer first, brand site second, and treat the rest as buyer-beware. Marketplaces aren't inherently dishonest, but they reward price competition over accuracy, and in a market where two visually identical beads can differ by a factor of fifty, that incentive structure works against you.
This is the fastest due-diligence tool available, and almost nobody uses it.
Suppose a listing offers a "wild sinking Vietnamese" bracelet, 15 mm beads, 15 beads, for USD 240.
A genuine USD 240 sale would represent a loss of some 99% on materials. That isn't a discount. It's arithmetic proof the description is false — the item is plantation wood, oil-enhanced, or both.
You don't need precision for this to work. Any time the claimed grade's per-gram cost exceeds the asking price, you've learned something decisive in about thirty seconds. Use the same logic with beads, chips and especially oil.
Copy this into your notes app and run it before every purchase:
Six of ten and you're gambling. Nine or ten and you can relax. Mandarin readers often work through 新手避坑五误区 and 沉香鉴别：掌柜四条实操法 alongside this list.
Ask these before paying. The answers matter, and so does whether they answer at all.
A dealer worth buying from answers all seven within a day and doesn't get defensive. Our identification guide covers what to check when the item arrives, and wild vs cultivated agarwood explains why question 3 matters so much commercially.
How this plays out. In September 2025 a Toronto buyer wrote to us about a "Hainan wild sinking" strand bought from a live-stream seller for about USD 480, shipped without tracking. It never arrived. The seller's account was gone within a month. Before shipping anything, we asked for what she still had — screenshots of the listing, including a weight line reading "approximately 30g, sinking guaranteed." That line was the useful artefact: a 15 mm strand at 30 g would be sinking, yes, and genuine Hainan sinking material at that weight represents somewhere in the region of USD 20,000–40,000 of raw wood. Nobody loses that for USD 480. She'd been tested on whether she knew the arithmetic, and she hadn't yet. She later bought from us a documented half-sinking Indonesian strand at USD 780, photographed on a scale, with permits on the invoice — roughly sixty per cent more money for vastly less risk and material she can actually resell.
Buying something above USD 1,000, or sourcing wholesale? Send us the listing you're considering and we'll tell you plainly whether the specs add up — no obligation. Or start from our own stock with everything documented: Wholesale, Products, or ask us directly.
Yes, if you verify before paying. Buy from sellers who publish gram weights, describe resin grade behaviourally, photograph pieces in daylight, offer at least a seven-day return window, accept buyer-protected payment, and list a real business address. Avoid marketplace listings with no specifications and social-media sellers taking direct transfers. Run the price-floor check on any "sinking grade" bargain before you believe the label.
A missing gram weight, combined with grade described only by invented labels like "AAA." Honest sellers know their numbers because they weigh everything. Close behind: prices that are arithmetically impossible for the claimed grade — a "wild sinking" bracelet at a few hundred dollars fails basic cost maths by roughly 100×.
For commercial cross-border shipments, generally yes. All Aquilaria species are listed under CITES Appendix II, so export permits from the country of origin with corresponding import documentation are the norm, requirements vary by destination. Personal allowances and finished-product exemptions differ between countries. Ask your seller before paying, and confirm with your national CITES authority rather than relying on the seller's assurance.
Tell us the use case and budget — we will tell you what actually fits, and what does not.