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30/70 is not a payment term. It is a risk allocation.

Buyers negotiate payment terms like a price. They are a statement about who carries the loss, and the standard structure leaves most of it with you.

Payment terms get negotiated like a price. They are not a price. They are a statement about who carries the risk if the goods are wrong, and that risk has a value you can put a number on.

What the standard structures actually do

Payment structures and how long your money is exposed Paying everything upfront exposes the full amount for the whole production period. Thirty seventy reduces the exposed amount. Deposit, inspection, balance keeps most of the money back until the goods are checked. Same order, same factory, three very different amounts at risk 100% upfront all of it, for the whole run 30 / 70 on order 30% 70% before shipment, before you have seen goods 30 / inspect / 70 30% inspection The middle row is what most buyers accept, and it is the row where the money is least protected: 70% leaves your account while the goods are still in the factory and nobody has looked at them. Moving the balance to after inspection costs the factory nothing but a little patience. Ask for it. Bars are order value, not time. Exposure is the shaded area between paying and getting verifiable goods.

Thirty/seventy is the default in the industry because it is convenient for the factory, not because it is balanced. The 70% is normally due before shipment, which means before you or anyone working for you has inspected anything. From that moment your only leverage is a promise.

Moving the balance to "after a passed inspection" is a small change in the contract and a large change in your position. Most factories accept it on a first order once they see that the inspection is defined in advance and paid for by you.

Four ways deposits go wrong

PatternWhat it looks like
Wrong payeeThe bank details name a person, a different company, or a "branch account". This is the most common and the most preventable — compare the account name to the business licence, character by character.
Price moves after the depositMaterial costs rose, the exchange rate moved, the quantity is too small after all. Legitimate factories do renegotiate; the pattern is that it happens after your money is committed rather than before.
Specification creepThe order is accepted at a price that only works if a process is dropped. You discover it at inspection, when the alternative is losing the deposit.
The disappeared intermediaryYou pay a trading company that pays a factory. When something fails, the trading company has no leverage either, and the factory has never heard of you.

What actually improves your position

What no payment term fixes

A supplier who intends to disappear, a factory that fails for reasons unrelated to your order, or goods that pass inspection and still disappoint your customers. Payment structure manages the amount you can lose, not the probability of losing it. Those are two different problems and they need two different controls — money terms for one, verification for the other.

The cheapest risk control is a small first order

If a supplier in front of you needs checking before money moves, that is a $149 question.

Send a supplier to check