Importing Furniture from China: Regions, Materials, Packaging

Guangdong concentrates a large share of Chinese furniture production, with Foshan as the central hub. Shunde district, and in particular the Lecong area, brings together a large number of furniture factories and showrooms, from sofas to office furniture. Other cities in the province, such as Dongguan, also produce panel-based furniture and metal parts.

Other regions have specialised in specific families. Anji, in Zhejiang, is known for manufacturing seating and office chairs. Shandong and Heilongjiang concentrate part of solid wood processing, closer to forested areas. Choosing a region therefore means first choosing the product family you are looking to have manufactured.

Solid wood varies with the species and the drying process: poorly dried wood warps after a few months in Europe, where the air is drier or more humid depending on the season. Ask for the wood's moisture content on delivery and the drying method used.

Panels (plywood, MDF, particleboard) raise the question of formaldehyde, present in certain glues. Reputable manufacturers state an emission class, often marked E1 for the European market. Require a test report on the panel actually used in your order, not a generic certificate from the panel supplier.

Metal, whether a sofa frame or table legs, is judged on tube thickness, weld quality and surface treatment. Paint or a coating that is poorly applied chips after a few months of use, a defect that is not always visible on a new sample.

Furniture most often travels as a kit, flat-packed, with parts protected by reinforced cardboard and foam or polystyrene corners. This choice is not just a matter of cardboard cost: a disassembled piece of furniture fills a container better than an assembled one, and sea freight for this type of goods is most often billed by volume, not by weight.

A poor container fill rate is paid for twice: on freight, and on arrival if the boxes have shifted during transport. Ask the factory for a loading plan before confirming the order, with the number of units per 20 or 40 foot container. Also check the weight and dimensions of each box: a box that is too heavy complicates handling on arrival and increases the risk of damage.

Furniture intended for European consumers, when no specific text governs it, falls under Regulation (EU) 2023/988 on general product safety. The factory must be able to demonstrate a risk analysis and provide technical documentation, and your details as importer must appear on the product or its packaging.

The REACH Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006 also governs the substances contained in coatings, glues and foams. Ask for recent test reports, established on the finished product, particularly on upholstery foams and flame-retardant treatments when the regulations of the country of sale require them. Furniture for children or for institutional use may fall under additional rules: check the actual use before ordering.

The minimum order for a piece of furniture is often thought of in terms of container volume rather than number of units: a factory more readily accepts a small quantity of a bulky reference if it completes a load with other references. Always ask for the MOQ per reference and per finish colour, which can vary widely from one model to another.

A furniture sample takes time to produce, particularly for a solid wood piece or a sofa with a specific fabric, and an underestimated lead time delays everything that follows. Have the sample tested in real conditions, assembly, load, repeated use of mechanisms such as hinges or sliding systems, before approving the pre-production run.

Mixing several references that are light in weight but bulky also complicates freight calculation: a 40 foot high cube container does not perform the same way depending on whether the range combines sofas, tables and small accessories. Have the loading plan drawn up reference by reference, not on an overall average, to avoid a revised freight invoice after the container has departed.

Sorva is a brokerage and sourcing house. Our Chinese-speaking team in Guangzhou identifies the workshops suited to your product family in the hubs of Guangdong, Zhejiang or elsewhere, has the materials and test reports checked, frames the packaging and loading plan with the factory, and follows production through to pre-shipment inspection.

In most cases, you pay no fees: you open a file with us, we negotiate the goods for you, and we take a commission on their ex-factory value.