The first order is where most import margins are won or lost. Not on the unit price — on the three variables that sit around it. Understand these and you can negotiate from a position of fact rather than hope.
MOQ — minimum order quantity
MOQ protects the factory's setup cost. Below a certain volume, the jigs, the weave templates and the finish records cost more than the wood. For most of our catalogue pieces the floor is 20 units per SKU, and we will consolidate mixed SKUs into a single 40HQ container.
Trial quantities
For a first order, smaller quantities are possible on stock weaves and finishes — because the tooling already exists. Ask for the "trial MOQ" rather than the "production MOQ" and you may ship 30 pieces instead of 200.
FOB — free on board
FOB Shenzhen (or Guangzhou, or Shanghai) means the price includes everything up to the goods being loaded on the vessel at that port. Your responsibility — and your freight forwarder's — begins the moment they cross the rail. Anything quoted "EXW factory" is cheaper on paper and more expensive in practice, because you now own inland trucking, export clearance and port handling.
Always compare quotes on the same Incoterm. A $40 FOB gap can vanish inside a $60 EXW-to-port gap you didn't price.
Lead time — the number that plans your opening
Sample in 7–10 days. Production in 30–45 days after sample approval. Sea freight another 25–35 days to Europe or the US East Coast. We plan backwards from your opening date, because a delayed container is rarely a factory problem — it is a sequencing problem that was visible three months earlier.
| Stage | Typical duration |
|---|---|
| Sample build | 7–10 days |
| Production after approval | 30–45 days |
| Sea freight to EU / US | 25–35 days |
| Total, door-to-door planning | ≈ 10–13 weeks |