How to Buy and Import Furniture from China?

0
609

When building a home, furniture has a major role to play. Furniture makes a major part of home. This does not only apply to home furniture but to office furniture or furniture for other uses as well.

Good quality, aesthetically pleasing and inexpensive furniture is hard to find. This is because good quality furniture is usually expensive. Besides, inexpensive furniture is not that good in quality and aesthetically pleasing. Therefore, finding high quality, aesthetically pleasing and inexpensive furniture at the same time is hard to find. Nevertheless, fortunately all of these qualities along with the type of furniture with amazing designs are readily available China. Everyone pretty much knows that. China makes everything and anything at uniquely reasonable and low costs at extremely good quality. The best option is to buy and import furniture from China, since buying and importing furniture from China is more inexpensive than from making purchases locally. China became the largest importer of furniture in the world in 2004 and is up to this day, since there are over 50,000 generic, brand less and even branded manufacturers of furniture in China.

Here you can get a detailed guide on how to buy and import furniture from China. However, before that here are some things that you need to know and have information about prior to making the buying decision or a purchase.

The fact is that furniture produced by China has minimum use of nails, screws, glue, etc. The furniture is made in ways that the use of lesser tools could elongate the furniture life. Besides, the sellers and shippers set a minimum order quantity for international shipping, since they do not ship one single item most of the times, especially if the order is international. However, some sellers and shipper do allow shipping of a single or non bulk items internationally depending upon their regulations, level and size of the business. Next thing that needs to be seen is the shipping cost. Some sellers provide free shipping, whereas, some charge a heavy shipping cost on international shipping. Therefore, before placing the order the minimum order quantity and shipping cost must be seen and known.

There are a multiple places in China from where furniture can be bought, some of which are listed below:

  1. AliBaba: AliBaba is China’s biggest business to business and business to customer supplier of furniture and other goods where branded products and private labels are sold both in bulk as well as in single quantity. AliBaba offers both free shipping as well as shipping at low costs in reasonable prices, worldwide.
  2. Furniture Malls
    • Shunde Furniture Mall: Shunde Furniture Mall is located in Shunde, which is a district of the Foshan city of China. The Shunde Furniture Mall is famous for its renowned wholesale furniture market based within a mall, which is a major attraction for both individual customers as well as business bulk buyers where over 45,000 local as well as international furniture dealers are all available all in one single place. Shunde Furniture Mall displays furniture in a 5 kilometers long area dispersed on over 20 streets.
    • Louvre Furniture Mall: Louvre Furniture Mall is a high end furniture market that has extremely exquisite and expensive furniture that is completely scam free where buyers can find high end yet highly reliable furniture in bulk or in individual purchase basis. Louvre Furniture Mall makes up the major portion of China’s furniture industry, specifies that this furniture mall is highly visited and people from all over the world purchase furniture from here, which is known for its expensive price and high quality.
    • Sunlike Furniture Wholesale Market: Sunlike Furniture Wholesale Market is a famous whole furniture market of China where inexpensive and good quality furniture is readily available. Those who are on a budget and looking for good furniture tend to visit Sunlike Furniture Wholesale Market.
  3. China International Furniture Fair: The China International Furniture Fair is China’s biggest and well established furniture fair, which is scheduled to take place twice a year, in March and September.

Once the goods for purchase have been selected and decided, the next query that is in queue that needs addressing is the payment method. There are a number of payment methods available that can be used when buying and importing furniture from China. Here are some payment methods that can be used when buying and importing furniture from China:

  1. International Wire Transfer: International Wire Transfer is the oldest and the most common form of payment that can be used when buying and importing furniture from China. Internternational Wire Transfer is used by small and medium sized businesses in which an agreed amount is paid before the production of the goods is even started as the down payment. The final agreed payment is later paid after the receiving of the goods.
  2. Letter of Credit: Letter of Credit is the most secure method of payment that involves banks that take care of the transaction. The bank charges additional fees for providing Letter of Credit services. Letter of credit is suitable for larger transactions.
  3. Online Escrow: Payments via online escrow are ideal for small transactions that involves internet based escrow services. The payment does not involve a lot of paper work, which makes it less secure as compared to the earlier payment methods and is suitable for smaller transactions.
  4. Cash Payment via a Sourcing Company or Sourcing Agent: For those buying and importing furniture for business purposes and working with some kind of sourcing company can make use out of the sourcing company they are working with, since it is safer than online escrow as the sourcing agent will be responsible for paying in the form of cash on delivery.
  5. PayPal: PayPal is today’s popular payment method that is similar to that of a credit card payment. PayPal is safer because it uses an email account for making payments than revealing the users credit card information.