Essentials before coming for furniture shopping to China

Shopping in China is getting quite popular from year to year. Internet is feeding you with information about Guangzhou (or Foshan) talking about the best ways to save money.

Most of the articles leave more questions than answers really. We’ll try to combine it all, digest and present in the simple and easy to comprehend form. Let’s roll!

Where to begin?

If you have 100% decided to go to Foshan (China) for furniture (let’s say furniture as an example), first thing first choose whether you’re going to purchase everything on your own or hiring an agent/agency to help you with shopping, placing orders, transferring money to suppliers, quality control, warehousing, customs clearance in China and shipping it to you.

Let’s see the pros and cons of these two options.

Option #1 — You’re doing everything by yourself in Foshan, China

1. Take care of your tickets, hotel, VISA (many countries in South-East Asia are visa-free, China is not, make sure to apply for it in advance).
2. Talking with suppliers and placing orders on your own. Keep in mind all the documentation is in Chinese, the one they give to you also in Chinese.
3. You won’t know which shops are good, so add up 3-4 days to figuring out which markets are better, getting around, walking an enormous amount of steps (unless you do 30 000 steps a day).
4. Prepare to pay transfer fees for deposit payments (yes, every time).
5. No quality control. Pray for your factory to have it (little reminder only VERY good factories have decent or any quality control).
6. Find a logistic company to help put your order together, store it for some time (everything, of course, going to be ready at different times – 20-60 days), book a container, do customs clearance in China and ship it to your country.

This option is perfect for those who don’t care much about the quality and is after prices only.

If you have too much free time this is for you.

Option #2 - Hire an agency/agent in China

1. Book your plane tickets, hotel and don’t forget about the VISA. There are very few countries that don’t need Visas to China, you also can be qualified for a transit visa.
2. Find an agency/agent to help you with the actual job: sourcing, talking to factories, doing quality checks, customs clearance and shipment to your country.
3. Find customs broker in your country and hire someone to unload the container.

Delivery cost from China (Foshan, Guangzhou)

We do shipping worldwide, here is just a small list of the countries we’ve delivered to over the years: New Zealand, Australia, USA, Spain, Israel, India, Tonga, Seychelles, Mauritius, Canada, Costa Rica, Brazil, Mozambique, France, Georgia, Russia, Romania, Germany, Italy, Kuwait, UAE.

We’ve made simple to understand delivery calculator (all paper, port and other fees are included):

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*this is an estimated shipping cost, the shipping rates change every month

If you haven’t found your country or port in the list, please contact us: info@globus.furniture.

How to calculate the final price of the goods from China?

The final price is surely not just what you’ll pay for the goods itself and this is an easy way to find out the final price of your shopping list:

1. Price in China
2. Delivery cost to your city (not just nearest port)
3. Customs clearance in China and country of delivery

These costs will give you 95-99% of the total price when importing goods from China.

We strongly suggest coming for the middle to high segment furniture because cheap things are cheap in your country as well (thank you to bulk buyers and wholesalers).

3 must do’s after buying furniture in China

Apart from buying goods in China, there are some important things to take care of

Step 1: Quality control in China

The biggest place to buy furniture is Foshan. Read our article about Foshan is the world furniture capital. First of all, we have to say that cities in China are larger than you’ve probably used to. Giving that a factory IN FOSHAN, it doesn’t mean you’ll get there fast, it can easily take you up to 2 hours and it’s still gonna be in Foshan. Foshan is not only the biggest place for production but for showroom space it has for every possible home item. Which also means that if a factory has a showroom in Foshan, it can be physically based somewhere in Guangdong province.

Imagine that you’ve paid a 30% deposit (rarely it can be 50%) now it’s in the production queue. Average production time is 15-60 days depending on a factory, workload, equipment and the type of goods.

How to do quality control:

• Check all the things you’ve ordered. Double checking didn’t hurt anyone!
• Make sure to check upholstery tightness, pull the buttons and look at the furniture from all the sides.
• Get a torch and take it with you with every quality check. Factory warehouses have bad if any illumination. In the dim light, you might not notice scratches or other defects.
• Check fittings and accessories, most common mistakes made in details.
• If you’re buying furniture, make sure supplier assemble it in advance and check all the measurements. Look and check with the original design you’ve ordered, all the parts should match, fittings are good and working well.
• After everything is checked and cleared out make sure workers pack it back again and if furniture looks like it need additional packing, don’t be shy and insist. Sometimes you need to pay extra, don't’ hesitate it costs fairly cheap but you’ll know it will arrive safe and sound to your door.

Step 2: Container loading

Make sure there is someone watching container loading because unattended moving men can destroy your goods and believe us won’t ever be responsible for that. Make sure there is someone on a watch.

Step 3: Delivery from China to your country

Make sure to use some reliable company that won’t bail out or disappear in the middle of the process. Make sure they know how to ensure container safety.

We hope this was an informative and helpful article. Don’t be scared to buy things in China but buy it well prepared.

Our company has 10 years experience in buying furniture, ceramics, mosaic, marble, sanitary ware, finishing a building materials and its quality control.

Send us your request to info@globus-furniture.com or WhatsApp us +8618675762020.

We:

• Have an office and warehouse in Foshan
• Have professional translators
• 10 years experience
• Delivery worldwide
• Do customs clearance in China