A three-year supply agreement has been signed with a German contract-furniture distributor serving hotel and restaurant projects in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The agreement covers an initial twelve containers a year, weighted towards indoor seating with an outdoor component for terrace work, and the first shipment left in February.
The distributor's name is withheld under the terms of the agreement. What is worth describing is what the qualification process demanded, because it is the same list most European contract buyers will ask for.
What the qualification took
| Requirement | What we had to produce |
|---|---|
| Timber legality and sustainability | FSC chain-of-custody certificate plus transaction certificates per lot |
| Chemical compliance | REACH SVHC declarations for finishes, adhesives and foam; CARB/TSCA statement for plywood |
| Social compliance | Social audit against the distributor's own code: working hours, wages, safety, grievance mechanism |
| Structural testing | EN 16139 for contract seating and EN 581 for outdoor, third-party test reports per family |
| Consistency | Three production samples of the same SKU, taken from three separate batches, dimensionally compared |
| Packing and logistics | ISTA-style drop and vibration testing on the actual carton, not a generic one |
The third item and the fifth item were the ones that took time. A social audit is not a document you write; it is a way of running a workshop. And a buyer comparing three batches of the same chair with a caliper is testing the process, not the sample — which is exactly the right thing for them to test.
What it changes for other buyers
Nothing about MOQ or lead time — those stay at 20 pieces per SKU and 30–45 days. What it does change is that the compliance paperwork is now maintained continuously rather than assembled per enquiry, so a European buyer asking for REACH, FSC and structural test reports gets them in a day instead of a fortnight. It also means the workshop runs to a documented quality system for every order, not only for the ones under this contract.
A contract like this is not won on price. It is won on whether the paperwork survives an audit six months after the order ships.
If you are qualifying suppliers for a contract programme in Europe or North America, email jacky@soonmao.com with your compliance checklist and we will reply against your list, item by item.
Media enquiries
Soonmao export desk · jacky@soonmao.com · +86 18701082568