Chenghai, Shantou’s toy district, keeps its industry on permanent display: wholesale showrooms where thousands of suppliers show samples year-round, and the three main venues sit within a 745-metre walk of each other.
This guide covers what those showrooms actually are, how the three differ, how to see all of them in a day, and what to sort out before you fly. The showroom details below come from the structured profiles we keep on SourceToys – we run a supplier directory, list showrooms alongside factories and trading companies, and take no commissions, so none of what follows is trying to sell you a visit.
What a toy showroom is – and why Shantou has them
Chenghai is one of China’s main toy production bases, with dense supplier coverage and a complete supply chain across plastic toys, building blocks, dolls, and RC and electric toys. That density creates a practical problem for a visiting buyer: the factories are spread across an entire district, and no one has time to drive to a hundred of them.
The showroom is the industry’s answer. Factories rent permanent booths in a shared building and keep their current samples on display, so a buyer can walk the aisles, handle products from hundreds of suppliers in an afternoon, and sit down with the ones worth a conversation. If you are able to travel to China and prefer to choose products face to face, this is the route built for you – the other buying routes, and when each applies, are covered in our guide to sourcing toys from China and in how SourceToys works.
The three showrooms – three different ways to shop
Chenghai’s showroom district has three main venues, and their own positioning happens to describe three styles of visit: a one-stop sample mall, a year-round trade show, and a guided sourcing platform.
Jinchengfeng (JCF Toys Showroom): the one-stop sample mall
Established in 2015, Jinchengfeng runs 12 floors and 30,000 m² on Wenhua South Road, hosting over 2,000 brands and displaying close to a million products. It works like a department store for the toy trade: floors of booths – shareholder, brand, specialty and standard – covering most of the industry’s categories, from models, educational and infant lines to RC, building and assembly toys, plus ranges built on traditional Chinese culture such as landmark-architecture building blocks. More than 120 toy enterprises with in-house production, R&D and design are based in the building itself, alongside hundreds of source factories. Facilities run from meeting rooms to a prayer room, and the building is open 24 hours a day, every day.
Hoton: the trade show that never closes
Hoton Toy Showroom began in the early 2000s as a small shared sample room and has grown, through several relocations, into a 10-floor, 30,000 m² complex holding over 7,000 brands – more than 6,000 of them manufacturers – and over 600,000 product styles. The format feels like a trade fair that never packs up: dedicated zones for trend toys, AI toys and brand-name products, a China-chic section, search robots to locate products, and a service team that helps with sourcing and supplier matching. If your priority is seeing the widest possible selection in one building, start here.
Hangjianyuan: the guided visit
The newest of the three, Hangjianyuan opened in 2024 with 6 floors and 10,000 m² on Wenguan Road, hosting over 600 brands from Chenghai and the surrounding area. It is deliberately the smallest and the most curated: most exhibitors are manufacturers with OEM and ODM booths, and the house service is product-selection consultation – staff who walk the floors with you, explain what you are looking at, and hand you over to a dedicated negotiation area when you find something. If it is your first time buying toys in China, this is the gentlest entry point.
Seeing all three in one day
The three venues form a walking circle: Jinchengfeng and Hangjianyuan are about 130 metres apart – two streets, three minutes – and Hoton is 745 metres from Jinchengfeng and about 700 metres from Hangjianyuan, roughly a ten-minute walk. Distances here are measured between the venues’ actual coordinates, not estimated.
A workable route: start at Hoton in the morning for the broadest sweep of the market, walk over to Hangjianyuan after lunch for a slower, guided pass with its consultation service, and finish at Jinchengfeng next door to fill the gaps by category. All three are open 24 hours daily, so the schedule bends to your flight times, and all three work in Chinese and English.
Getting there: the district is about 40 minutes by car from Jieyang Chaoshan Airport (SWA) and around 30 minutes from central Shantou. Jinchengfeng and Hoton both offer a complimentary pick-up service – call +86 754 8628 7777 or +86 754 8580 4669 respectively to arrange it – and taxis from the airport or Shantou Railway Station are straightforward.
Before you go
None of the three requires an appointment – all are walk-in venues. Still, a little preparation changes what you get out of the day:
- Bring business cards and a requirement list. Booth staff talk specifics quickly – target categories, quantities, destination markets. A one-page list of what you sell and what you are looking for keeps every conversation short and useful.
- Collect supplier details as you go. The value of the visit is the shortlist you leave with: which booths, which products, which contacts. Several factories listed on SourceToys keep booths in these venues, and their profiles show the showroom and booth number – so you can also build part of your shortlist online first and walk straight to the right floor.
- Seeing samples is not the same as placing an order. The showroom visit tells you what exists and who makes it. The order itself still goes through the normal steps afterwards – confirming specifications and certifications with the factory, checking the factory itself, and agreeing prices and terms. Whether that order belongs with the factory directly or with a trading company is its own decision – our factory vs trading company guide walks through it. Plan the visit as the start of the process, not the end of it.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need an appointment to visit the Chenghai showrooms?
No. Jinchengfeng, Hoton and Hangjianyuan are all walk-in venues, open 24 hours a day, every day. Two of them offer complimentary pick-up from the airport or city if you call ahead, which is a courtesy worth using but not a requirement for entry.
Can I buy on the spot?
Think of the showroom as a selection venue rather than a cash-and-carry market. You inspect samples, compare suppliers and open negotiations there; wholesale orders are then agreed with the factory or trading company – typically after the visit, once specifications, certification needs and payment terms are confirmed. Chenghai showroom booths exist to start that relationship, not to close it at the counter.
Will language be a problem?
All three venues work in Chinese and English, and Hangjianyuan in particular offers guided product-selection consultation. For detailed technical negotiations, writing your requirements down – specifications, quantities, target certifications – travels better than relying on conversation alone.
How do I get to the showroom district?
Fly into Jieyang Chaoshan Airport (SWA); the showroom district in Chenghai is about 40 minutes away by car, and central Shantou about 30 minutes. Jinchengfeng and Hoton arrange complimentary pick-up by phone, and once you are there, everything is walkable: the three venues sit within a 745-metre circle around Wenguan Road and Wenhua South Road.
