Most people who compare furniture from China against local retail make the same mistake. They put the factory quotation next to the shop price, see a gap of seventy percent, and assume that is what they will save. Then the freight invoice arrives, the customs broker sends a bill, and the number moves.
The factory price is the start of the calculation, not the end of it. This article walks through everything that sits between a quotation in Foshan and a pallet in your warehouse, so you can build a budget that survives contact with reality.
The cost stack, piece by piece
1. The factory price
Usually quoted either EXW, meaning you collect from the factory gate, or FOB, meaning the factory delivers to the port and handles export clearance. FOB is the more common basis for furniture and the easier one to compare between suppliers. Make sure every quote you are comparing sits on the same basis, because an EXW price will always look lower than an FOB price for the same goods.
2. Inland transport and consolidation
If you buy from six factories, someone has to collect from six factories. Goods come to a warehouse, get checked, get repacked where the factory packing is not strong enough for a long sea journey, and get loaded into one container. This is where a lot of damage is prevented, and it is a cost worth paying rather than avoiding.
3. Sea freight
Charged per container, not per item, which is the single most important fact in this whole article. A 20 foot container holds roughly 28 to 33 cubic metres of furniture. A 40 foot high cube holds roughly 65 to 76. Whether you fill it or half fill it, the freight bill is broadly the same.
4. Insurance
A small percentage of cargo value and worth every cent. Containers do occasionally get wet, dropped or lost overboard.
5. Duty and local tax
Set by your country, based on the tariff classification of each product. Furniture, tiles, lighting and sanitary ware do not all share a rate. Your customs broker confirms the exact figures for your codes and destination. We prepare the documentation and the correct classification so nothing is held at the border, but we do not set the rate and neither does the factory.
6. Destination charges and delivery
Port handling, customs clearance fees, possibly quarantine or timber treatment requirements depending on your country, then unloading and the truck to your door.
7. Agent fee
Ours is between five and ten percent of order value, agreed in writing before anything begins. Smaller and first orders sit at the higher end, larger and repeat orders move toward five. You pay the factory directly, so no factory pays us and we have no reason to steer you anywhere except the right supplier.
Why volume changes everything
Here is the same comparison at three order sizes. The per item costs are identical in all three columns. Only the quantity changes, and with it the share that fixed shipping and clearance costs take from each piece.
| Scenario | Small order | Half container | Full 20ft container |
|---|---|---|---|
| Goods value at factory | USD 900 | USD 4,000 | USD 8,000 |
| Freight, clearance and destination charges | broadly similar in all three | broadly similar in all three | broadly similar in all three |
| Share those fixed costs take | very high | moderate | low |
| Realistic outcome | often no saving at all | a real but modest saving | where the saving actually lives |
We have deliberately not put a single freight number in that table, because publishing one would be misleading three months from now. The pattern, however, is stable and it is the thing worth understanding: the fixed costs do not care how full your container is.
The mistakes that cost people money
- Comparing EXW against FOB. Two quotes, different bases, wrong conclusion.
- Forgetting cubic metres. Furniture is bulky and light. You will almost always run out of space before you run out of weight allowance, so volume is what you budget against.
- Paying for air on a container. Poorly designed packing wastes space. Knock down construction on wardrobes and bed frames can dramatically increase how much you fit in the same box.
- Skipping pre shipment inspection. Finding a finish defect after the container is sealed means you own the problem. Finding it while goods are still at the factory means the factory owns it.
- Assuming the cheapest quote is the same product. It rarely is. Ask what changed.
A sensible way to budget
Take your factory subtotal, then treat freight, duty, tax, destination charges and our fee as a block that you estimate separately rather than as a percentage rule of thumb, because that block behaves very differently at different volumes. For a full container it is usually a manageable addition on top of goods value. For a handful of items it can exceed the value of the goods themselves.
Once you have a product list with quantities, we will put real numbers against every line of the stack, including a live freight quote to your port, before you commit to anything.
The part you cannot judge from a spreadsheet
Prices tell you whether a project is worth exploring. They do not tell you whether a factory can actually build what you drew, whether the finish matches the sample under daylight, or whether the person quoting you owns a factory at all rather than a desk and a phone.
This is the reason Foshan matters so much in furniture. The factories, the showrooms, the material suppliers and the finishing workshops sit close together, so a buyer who comes in person can see genuinely different suppliers in one day rather than spending a week in traffic. Lecong alone runs to millions of square metres of furniture showroom space, and the ceramics, lighting and sanitary ware bases are a short drive from it. Very few places in the world let you compare this many real manufacturers this quickly.
Booking a sourcing trip to Foshan
If you are seriously considering an order, come and walk the floor. We will build the itinerary around your product list, drive you between factories, translate the technical conversation, and tell you privately afterwards which suppliers we would actually use and which we would avoid.
One practical note, and we would rather be blunt than lose your time. We take a limited number of buyers each week, because each visit needs a person from our team with you for the whole day rather than a driver and a map. Certain windows fill up first: the two Canton Fair periods in April and October, and the weeks running up to Chinese New Year when factory capacity tightens and everyone wants to place orders before the shutdown. If your travel dates fall anywhere near those, confirm them with us early rather than late. Late requests in peak season are the ones we most often have to turn down.
Tell us when you are thinking of coming and what you want to look at, and we will confirm whether we have the days free before you book flights.