Type China sliding window supplier directory into a search box and you will get pages of company names, cities, establishment years and contact buttons. What you will not get is a single column that tells you whether any of them can make the window your project actually needs. That is not an oversight by the people who compile these lists. It is structural. A directory is a table of companies, and the thing you are buying is not a company.
We build aluminium windows and doors in Guangdong and ship them abroad, so we appear in directories of this kind ourselves. That is a reason to be careful here rather than confident: a factory that tells you directories are useless is usually about to suggest you buy from it instead. We are going to argue something narrower. Directories are genuinely useful for one job, useless for another, and almost nobody says which is which. The useful job is shortening a long list. The useless job is producing a decision. Everything below is about telling the two apart.
Every supplier directory you will find has roughly the same six columns. They vary in presentation, not in substance, because those six are the only ones a directory maintainer can fill without knowing anything about your building.
| Column almost every directory prints | What it actually measures | What it can never tell you |
|---|---|---|
| Company name | A registered legal entity | Whether that entity owns a production line, rents one, or buys from one |
| Year established | The incorporation date of the current entity | How long the people in it have been making windows; entities are restructured, renamed and re-registered constantly |
| Location or city | Usually the registered office, sometimes a sales office | Where your order will be cut, assembled and packed |
| Main products | Words the supplier typed into a free-text field | Which of those products it makes in-house and which it buys in |
| Certifications | That somebody once issued a document with that name on it | Which construction, which site and which series the certificate covers, or whether it is still current |
| Contact details | A route to a salesperson | Who is accountable in week thirty when something is wrong |
Read the right-hand column again. It is not a list of gaps in the directories you have seen. It is a list of the questions a directory is structurally unable to answer, because every one of them is about your order rather than about the company. Six columns is not a thin directory. Six columns is the whole possible set.
An aluminium sliding window is not bought from a supplier. It is bought as one row of a schedule. That row has roughly ten fields, and not one of them is a property of a company. This is the single most useful thing to understand about any directory, and it is also the reason a directory can never be more than a filter.
| Field on the row you actually buy | Is it a property of a company? | Does any directory have this column? | What happens if it is left blank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Series and frame depth | No, it is a product decision | No | The supplier picks one and you compare a price against nothing |
| Glass build-up, including spacer width | No | No | Sash weight is undefined, so every load rating quoted to you is meaningless |
| Hardware platform | No | No, it is usually reduced to a brand word | Adjustment range, spare parts and serviceability become unknown until year three |
| Sash size and sash weight | No | No | You may be specifying a size that sits outside the hardware application range |
| Configuration: which panel is fixed, which moves | No | No | Two suppliers quote the same nominal product with different numbers of moving sashes |
| Handing and opening sequence | No | No | It is machined into the profile; a wrong decision cannot be adjusted on site |
| Colour and coating batch | No | No | A replacement sash in year five arrives in a different shade |
| Packing method for the sea leg | No | No | Damage becomes a freight insurance argument with no agreed baseline |
| Port and delivery term | No | No | Two quotes differ by an amount that is logistics, not product |
| Who signs for the opening and the perimeter sealing | No, and it is rarely the factory | No | The first leak becomes a four-way conversation with no first responder |
Ten fields, ten blanks, and every directory you have ever looked at prints none of them. This is why two directory entries sitting side by side cannot be compared. They are not two prices for the same thing. They are two companies, each about to propose something different unless you tell them otherwise, and the directory has no place to write down what.
Open a directory page for aluminium sliding windows from a China sourcing portal and read down the entries slowly. In a single result set we reviewed while preparing this article, the same page carried a maker of rollers whose minimum order ran into thousands of pieces, an extrusion plant whose minimum order was quoted in tonnes, a steel-structure building company, an import-and-export trading company whose profile carried the manufacturer tag and an incorporation date two years before the search, and several fabricators of complete windows. All in one list. All under the same heading.
None of those entries is fraudulent. They are all real businesses that legitimately have something to do with sliding windows. The problem is that the directory has one label for all of them, and the label is the whole of the information.
| Business actually behind the entry | What it sells you | What its minimum order looks like | Can it give you a section drawing | How you tell which one it is |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Extrusion plant | Profile by weight, not finished windows | Tonnes, because that is how a press is scheduled | Yes, for the profile; no, for an assembled window | Ask what the minimum order is denominated in |
| Licensed fabricator for a system house | Finished windows to someone else's system design | Project quantities | Yes, but the die belongs to the system house | Ask who owns the profile die and who signs the performance declaration |
| Own-series fabricator | Finished windows on its own dies | Project quantities, sometimes per configuration | Yes, in full, including the glass rebate | Ask for the drawing with your opening dimension printed on it |
| Trading company or export agent | Access to a factory, plus coordination | Often lower, because it can consolidate several buyers | Yes, eventually, after it has asked the factory | Check the registered business scope; it is the fastest test that exists |
| Component or accessory maker | Rollers, seals, handles, track | Thousands of pieces | For the part only | Read the unit on the minimum order, not the product name |
The last row is the one that catches people out, because it is backwards from intuition. In that same result set, the cheapest object in the list carried the largest minimum order. A roller costing a small fraction of a window had to be bought in thousands; a complete window had a minimum order measured in single pieces. A minimum order quantity is a property of the production process, not of the value of what is being made. Which means the minimum order column in a directory is describing how each listing was configured, and tells you nothing you can compare across rows.
Here is the same problem from the buyer's side. Windows are priced, cut, packed and shipped per sash. Directory listings overwhelmingly quote minimum order quantities in square metres. Those two units are connected only through the size of your opening, which the directory does not know.
Take two common nominal sizes. A 48 x 24 sliding window is roughly 1219 by 610 millimetres, which is about three quarters of a square metre. A 60 x 36 sliding window is roughly 1524 by 914 millimetres, which is about one and four tenths of a square metre. The two differ by a factor of nearly two.
| Opening, nominal inches to millimetres | Area, our arithmetic | What a two square metre minimum buys you | What a ten square metre minimum buys you |
|---|---|---|---|
| 48 x 24 inches, about 1219 by 610 millimetres | About 0.74 square metres | About two and a half windows | About thirteen windows |
| 60 x 36 inches, about 1524 by 914 millimetres | About 1.39 square metres | About one and a half windows | About seven windows |
| The two sizes compared | Ratio of about 1.9 to one | The same printed minimum is nearly twice as many units | Same effect, scaled up |
So the identical string, two square metres, means three windows on one project and one and a half on another. It is not a production threshold. It is a number the listing owner typed. If you take one practical instruction from this section, take this one: when you write your enquiry, express quantity in units and in millimetres, never in area, and require the reply to do the same. That single discipline removes most of the confusion that directories create, and it costs nothing.
The instinct when facing a directory is to work through more of it. That instinct is exactly backwards, and the clearest proof comes from the organisation that publishes the largest supplier list in the country. The official buying guidance for the Canton Fair does not tell overseas buyers to download the full exhibitor list. It says the opposite: do not chase a complete list of tens of thousands of companies, start from your own procurement need and build a target list of roughly twenty to thirty names, because a list of hundreds cannot be evaluated in the days available. Guidance published for a major China building products fair makes the same point in a different form, advising buyers to shortlist around ten to fifteen companies at least two weeks before travelling.
Meanwhile the doors-and-windows zone of that building fair alone is reported to hold something like four hundred companies. Four hundred down to twenty-five is more than an order of magnitude. The people who own the directory are telling you to use a fraction of it.
| How many suppliers you send the enquiry to | What your specification has to be | What comes back | Comparability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Three | You can write all ten fields properly and hold them still | Three quotes for the same window | High, and differences are informative |
| Ten | Still achievable if the schedule is frozen before you send anything | Mostly comparable, with a few who substitute their own series | Good, but you must reject substitution in writing |
| Thirty | You will not write ten fields thirty times; you will write two paragraphs once | Thirty proposals for thirty different windows | None. You are comparing prices for objects that do not match |
| Two hundred | Impossible; the enquiry is by definition generic | Two hundred per-square-metre ranges with no stated configuration | Zero, and the spread will be several-fold for reasons unrelated to quality |
This is the directory paradox, and it is worth stating plainly: the number of suppliers you can meaningfully compare is capped by how completely you can specify, not by how many names you can find. A directory gives you names for free and specification effort not at all. So every additional row you work through past a certain point costs you comparability. The official guidance to keep the working list short is the same observation made by people who have no product to sell you.
Not all lists are equally weak. The difference is not how reputable the publisher is. It is whether being included costs the listed party something you could independently confirm. Most directories fail this test completely.
| Kind of directory | What inclusion actually requires | Can you check that yourself | What being listed proves | What it does not prove |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Marketplace search results | An account and a product listing | No | That the account exists and has posted something | Anything about capability, and the ordering is not a quality signal |
| Editorial top-ten rankings on supplier blogs | That a writer chose the name | No | That someone was willing to publish the name | The basis of the ranking; many such pages justify position with survey scores no reader can reproduce |
| Association or chamber member lists | A membership fee | Partly, you can confirm membership | That dues were paid | Any audited capability; membership criteria vary widely between bodies |
| Trade fair exhibitor directory | A booked stand: real money, real floor area, on published dates | Yes, the hall and booth number are a physical coordinate | That the company committed resources to stand behind its products in public on a known date | That the stand was staffed by the factory rather than an agent |
| Certification body register of licensees | An audit, and each entry names a site address | Yes, the register is published and searchable | That a named construction at a named address was tested | That the whole catalogue is covered; coverage is per construction |
The bottom two rows are the only ones where inclusion is expensive in a way you can check from your own desk. A booth number is a hall and a coordinate that exists whether or not you visit. A certificate register entry is a site address and a construction code that exists whether or not the supplier mentions it. Neither is a quality score. Both are things that happened.
It is worth looking closely at the second of those two, because it inverts almost everything a normal supplier list does. The certification council for sealed insulating glass publishes its directory of licensees as a plain document. There is no star rating, no top ten, no survey, no recommendation. The entries contain the licensee name, a full street address, a telephone number, a certification number, and then a set of construction codes describing what was actually tested.
| Field in that directory | What it is | Why it matters more than a rating |
|---|---|---|
| Licensee name | The legal entity that holds the certification | It may be a different entity from the brand on the brochure |
| Street address and telephone | The site that was audited | You can compare it with the address on the quotation |
| Certification number | One per certified construction, not one per company | A single licensee in that published directory holds several numbers at once |
| Frame or corner construction code | How the unit is put together | Two entries from the same company can describe different constructions |
| Spacer, desiccant and sealant codes | The materials at the edge of the unit | These are the parts that determine whether the seal survives, and no ordinary directory lists them |
| Gas content | Whether the cavity is filled, and with what | It changes the thermal figure and the price at the same time |
Notice what that structure implies. In the most rigorous directory this industry publishes, one company occupies several rows, because the certificate attaches to a construction rather than to a business. The row is the unit, not the company. That is precisely the argument we made at the top of this article, arrived at independently by a certification body that has no product to sell and no ranking to protect. The best directory in the field does not rank anyone. It lists what was tested.
There is one more thing a fair directory gives you that an online list cannot, and it is the most underrated: the floor plan groups the industry by what each participant actually does. At the China Building Expo in Guangzhou, for example, the doors and windows activity is reported to sit mainly in a defined set of halls, subdivided into a system windows zone, a door customisation area, and a supply chain zone for hardware, seals and production equipment, with hardware and tools in a separate hall from the windows.
| Zone on a fair floor plan | Who is in it | What that tells you that a web listing does not |
|---|---|---|
| System windows zone | Finished window and facade suppliers | Who expects to be asked for a whole assembly rather than a component |
| Door customisation area | Entry, villa and security door makers | That doors and windows are separate buying decisions even when one company sells both |
| Supply chain zone | Hardware, seals, insulation materials, machinery | That the hardware brand on your window comes from a different industry than the window does |
| Hardware and tools halls | Component manufacturers and tooling | That a roller maker and a window maker are in different halls, while an online directory puts them in adjacent rows under one label |
The published advice for using these halls is also worth borrowing: the floor plan follows product and technology logic rather than convenience, and adjacent booths often play complementary or sequential roles. So a hall plan does not just list companies. It shows you the structure of the industry you are buying into, and it separates the extruder from the hardware maker from the fabricator, which is exactly the distinction that gets flattened the moment the same names appear in a web table.
Every company registered in China carries a business licence bearing a Unified Social Credit Code, an eighteen-character identifier unique to that legal entity, and basic registration data is public through the national enterprise credit information system. Multiple independent sourcing advisors and accounting firms describe the same first step: ask for a current copy of the licence, then check the registered business scope.
The scope line is the useful one. Where a genuine factory is registered, the scope contains verbs meaning to manufacture, produce or process. Where it contains only trading, wholesale, retail, or import and export, the entity is registered as a commercial one rather than as a production site. That single line is the fastest test available, and it costs you one email.
| Question buyers assume the licence answers | What the licence actually tells you | What you still have to establish separately |
|---|---|---|
| Does this company legally exist | Yes, if the licence is current | Nothing, this one is settled |
| Who is legally responsible | The named legal representative | Whether that person signs your contract |
| Is it allowed to make my product | Only if a manufacturing verb appears in the scope | Nothing, if it does appear; if it does not, you have your answer |
| Does it own a factory | No, the licence does not evidence production capacity | The production address, confirmed by video walk-through or visit |
| Is it financially solid | No, registered capital is a declared figure and is not verified cash | Paid-in position, and whether the bank account name matches the licence exactly |
| Has it shipped similar orders before | No, the licence says nothing about export history | Customs registration, and shipment records matched to your product category |
| Is it in good standing | The public system records status changes and some risk indicators | Penalties, abnormal operation listings and litigation, which are visible but require someone to look |
The recurring warning from every one of these sources is the same: a valid licence is the entrance document, not the approval. It is table stakes. The verification that matters happens afterwards, at the production address, on the line, with the drawing in front of you.
Companies frequently do not operate at the address on the licence, and the licence belongs to a company that may run several sites. Advisors therefore tell buyers to ask for the production address specifically and to confirm it by a live video walk-through rather than a prepared tour, because a recorded clip can be anyone's.
We are a live example of why one address field is never enough. We operate two production centres, in Foshan and in Zhaoqing, both in Guangdong. A directory entry prints one address. So a column that no directory has, and that you should ask every supplier directly, is this one: which site will my order be made at? It matters for three reasons that only appear later. Coating batches are mixed per site, so consistency across a phased development depends on it. Hardware platforms and their application ranges may not be identical between sites. And the machining programmes and process versions in force at each site can differ. None of that is visible in a listing, and all of it is answerable in one sentence if you ask.
Marketplace directories add columns that feel like due diligence: a score, a reorder rate, a count of interested buyers, transaction volume, response time. Every one of these is produced by the platform's own traffic. None of them is a property of a window.
| Column | What it really measures | Consequence for a building project |
|---|---|---|
| Seller score | Buyer satisfaction with a transaction, usually on small repeatable orders | In the listings we reviewed nearly every score was at or near the maximum, so the column carried almost no variance and therefore almost no information |
| Reorder rate | How often buyers came back to that listing | A building buys its windows once. The behaviour being measured is not yours |
| Interested buyers | Attention | Popularity is not capacity, and attention does not tell you which machines are running |
| Transaction count or volume | Platform activity, often dominated by small parcels | High volume in small lots says very little about a container of custom sashes |
| Response time | How fast a salesperson replies | Fast replies are pleasant and nearly costless; they are the least useful signal in the whole table |
| Years on platform | How long the account has existed | Accounts are cheap to create and cheap to re-create; the licence date is the one that matters |
One observation from the listings we read makes the point better than an argument could. The summary on one of those pages flagged two entries carrying an identical product name belonging to different companies, with markedly different scores. Two rows, the same nominal product, different numbers. The score therefore cannot be measuring the product. It is measuring the row.
If no published directory has the columns you need, the answer is not to keep looking for a better one. It is to build a small one, where the rows are configurations rather than companies and the columns are the fields that actually decide. This is the most useful thing on this page, and it takes less time than reading three supplier websites.
| Column | What a good entry looks like | What happens if you leave it blank |
|---|---|---|
| Opening reference, matching your drawing | One tag used identically on plan, elevation, schedule and site | Nothing can be reconciled later and every query becomes a re-measure |
| Frame size in millimetres, stated as unit or opening | Two numbers plus the word saying which they are | The factory manufactures to a nominal size and the site built something else |
| Wall build-up, layer by layer from outside in | Each layer named with its thickness | Frame depth is guessed and the reveal is wrong on site |
| Series and frame depth | A named series with its depth in millimetres | The supplier substitutes freely and you cannot tell |
| Glass build-up with spacer width | Thickness, cavity, spacer, any gas fill, any coating | Sash weight is unknown and every load rating is unverifiable |
| Estimated sash weight | A number and the assumption behind it | You may be ordering outside the hardware application range without knowing |
| Configuration and handing | Which panel is fixed, which moves, and the convention used | It is machined into the profile, so the error is discovered at unpacking and cannot be corrected |
| Hardware platform | Named system, and whether the slot standard is stated | Spare parts in year eight become a research project |
| Colour and coating batch rule | Colour name, coating specification, and whether the whole project is one batch | A replacement in year five does not match |
| Packing and container plan | How sashes are separated, protected and stacked | Damage on arrival becomes an argument with no agreed baseline |
| Port and delivery term | Named port and the rule governing risk transfer | Two quotes differ for logistics reasons you mistake for product reasons |
| Who signs for the opening and perimeter sealing | A named role, and a named first responder for the first defect | The first leak becomes four parties each holding a different document |
Fill that in once and you have something no directory sells: a specification you can send unchanged to three suppliers and get three comparable answers. That is the whole purpose a directory was supposed to serve.
We appear in directories of this kind, so it is fair to describe exactly what our row would and would not contain. Start with the most useful negative. If what your project needs is an ordinary two-track sliding window, our sliding-window catalogue holds one product and it is not that. It is a side-press window, a different mechanism that moves the sash out of the sliding plane before it seals. We would rather say that here than let you discover it in week six, and we will not dress a sliding door up as an answer to a sliding-window schedule.
A second negative, and it is the one we repeat most often: several numbers in our own catalogue are not the measurement they look like. Our published thermal figures are system values for specific series, not whole-window values measured to another country's rating procedure, and our sliding products do not carry a published thermal figure at all. The corrosion and shear figures we publish belong to one series and describe coating and composite bond behaviour; they are not air, water or wind ratings, and they do not transfer to other series. Load figures in our catalogue are quoted per sash, and the driving-capacity figure on one family is not the same measurement as the pulley rating on another. Sorting those into one descending column is the single most common way our catalogue gets misread, and we would rather point at it ourselves.
There is also the two-site point already made, and one more that belongs specifically to a directory: a catalogue entry is one product, but a single product can occupy many rows of your schedule. Our side-press window is offered in more than one fixed-and-moving configuration, with more than one screen option, and with optional extended functions including an integrated glass railing. Choosing among those is your decision, not ours, and no listing can carry it.
| Item | Do we publish it | Why, or why there is a gap |
|---|---|---|
| Alloy designation and temper | Yes, across the range | It is a material declaration, not a performance grade |
| Profile wall thickness range | Yes, per series | It is a series property and applies to the stated thickness band |
| Thermal break material | Yes | Polyamide with glass fibre, multi-chamber |
| Thermal value | For some series only | It is a system value, not a whole-window value, and not measured to another country's procedure |
| Hardware brand | Yes | Brand is the least informative of the four hardware questions; ask for platform and slot standard |
| Load rating | Yes, per sash, on some families | It is quoted under an assumed glass build-up; change the glass and the figure is no longer the one published |
| Maximum sash size and weight | Partly, on the door families | It is a function of the hardware platform and glass build-up, so it must be asked for as a matched set |
| Air, water and wind ratings | Not published in the catalogue | Not publishing does not mean worse; it means there is nothing to compare. Request a calculated value for your size and glass |
| Corrosion and shear test figures | Yes, for one series | They describe coating and composite bond behaviour and do not transfer across series |
| Which production centre will make your order | Not published | It depends on the order. Ask, and get it in writing before the coating batch is scheduled |
| Spare part numbers | Not published | They follow from the hardware platform. Ask for a per-opening list to travel with the original container |
| Project approval, opening sealing, local compliance | Not published, and not ours to publish | Approval attaches to a building and a authority, not to a supplier. We supply evidence, drawings and samples, not the sign-off |
Send these with your enquiry. The third column is the one that saves you time, because a confident answer that carries no information is worse than no answer at all: it stops you asking again.
| Ask this | A good answer contains | Sounds reasonable, carries no information |
|---|---|---|
| Send the business licence | A current scan, with the code legible | A cropped image, or a certificate of some other scheme instead |
| Which site will this order be made at | A named site, and a named person who can confirm it later | Our factory, or the registered office address copied from the listing |
| Send the section drawing with my opening size on it | The glass rebate dimensioned, and your millimetre size printed on the sheet | A generic catalogue section with no dimensions on it |
| What is the load rating for this sash, per sash | A figure, the glass build-up it assumes, and confirmation it is per sash | Heavy duty, or a figure with no stated basis |
| What is the maximum sash size at that glass build-up | A width and a height, tied to a named glass and platform | A size from the brochure with no glass stated |
| Which hardware platform, and which slot standard | A system name and the slot geometry it is built around | German hardware, or a brand name alone |
| What adjustment remains after installation | Named adjustment points and their travel | Fully adjustable |
| Air, water and wind figures for my size | A standard name, a version, and the tested configuration | Meets international standards, or the series is tested |
| One coating batch for the whole project | A commitment, and batch numbers recorded per opening tag | Same colour |
| How are sashes packed, and what is the container plan | Separation, edge protection, and a stated loading order | Export standard packing |
| Spare parts list travelling with the original shipment | Part numbers matched to each opening tag | Spare parts available |
| Who is the first responder for the first defect | One named role that accepts the claim before responsibility is settled | A list of three contacts in different companies |
Some of these are cases where we would rather not receive the enquiry, which is the only honest way to write this table.
| Situation | Why a directory is the wrong tool | Do this instead |
|---|---|---|
| One house, a handful of windows | Freight, handling and your own coordination cost more than the product difference | Buy locally and spend the saving on installation quality |
| You need one party to measure, install and warrant | A factory ships product; it does not own your opening | Use a local contractor and buy through them |
| Openings are not yet fixed | Every number you receive will be provisional and none will be comparable | Freeze the schedule first, then send one enquiry |
| You need a replacement sash next month | A production cycle plus a sea leg is longer than your deadline | Use whoever holds the original part numbers and batch record |
| You want a material we do not make | Directories happily list aluminium, timber and vinyl suppliers in one column, and the column does not say which is which | Filter by material before anything else; if you want a vinyl sliding door or a timber one, we are not the right row and will say so |
| You need an ordinary sliding window rather than a side-press one | A directory listing cannot tell you which mechanism a product uses | Ask the mechanism question in the first email, not the fifth |
| The programme has no time for a first-article inspection | Then you are buying on documents, and documents are the one thing directories are full of | Either buy a paid sample and destroy it, or buy closer to home |
No, and the gap is where most sourcing problems start. The same page will carry extrusion plants, licensed fabricators, own-series fabricators, trading companies and component makers, frequently under one label. The registration record settles it faster than anything else: if the registered business scope contains a manufacturing verb, the entity is registered to produce; if it contains only trading, wholesale or import and export, it is not. Neither is dishonest. They are different things that a directory has one word for.
Far fewer than a directory tempts you to. The published buying guidance for the country's largest trade fair recommends a working target list of roughly twenty to thirty companies rather than the full list, and guidance for a major building fair suggests shortlisting about ten to fifteen in advance. In our experience the binding limit is not names but specification: you can completely specify a window for three suppliers, and you cannot for thirty. Past that point you are collecting prices for objects that do not match.
It means buyers of that listing were satisfied with a transaction. In the listings we reviewed, scores clustered at or near the maximum, so the column had almost no spread and therefore carried almost no information. The clearest demonstration was a page where two companies carried an identical product name with very different scores: the score was measuring the row, not the window.
The certification registers, because they publish a site address and a construction code rather than an opinion. The sealed insulating glass certification council publishes a licence directory with no ranking and no score, listing the licensee, the address, the telephone number, a certification number and the construction codes for spacer, desiccant, sealant and gas fill. One company can hold several numbers, because the certificate attaches to a construction. That structure tells you more about how this industry works than any ranked list.
Partly, and further than most buyers go. Ask for a current business licence and read the registered scope. Confirm the entity against the national credit system using the eighteen-character code. Ask for the production address rather than the registered one, and insist on a live video walk-through rather than a prepared clip, with questions asked mid-walk. Confirm that the bank account name matches the licence exactly before any transfer. None of those steps requires a flight, and together they catch most of what goes wrong.
Because being findable is not the same as being chosen, and the first is a real problem. A directory solves discovery. It does not solve selection, and no amount of extra columns will change that, because the decisive fields are yours rather than the supplier's. We would rather be found and then asked the twelve questions than be ranked. You can see what we have built and shipped on our project pages, and if you want to send the twelve questions, our contact page is the fastest route to someone who has to answer them.
