BUYER GUIDES · FROM THE FACTORY

How to buy custom furniture from China

Written by the team at TY Furniture Factory in Dongguan. This is the process we run every week for buyers on three continents, described the way we would explain it to a friend.

Step 1: Start with a picture, not a catalog

Most buyers think they must choose from what a factory already makes. Custom manufacturing works the other way. You send a photo, a drawing, or even a screenshot of a piece you like, and the factory tells you whether it can build it, in what materials, and for how much. Any serious custom factory will quote from a picture.

Step 2: Get a written quotation with a timeline

A proper quotation names the piece, the materials, the dimensions, the production time and the terms, in writing, before you pay anything. At our factory production takes 25 to 45 days depending on the piece and quantity, and that number goes into the quotation. If a supplier will not commit to a timeline in writing, that tells you something.

Step 3: Approve the production drawing

The factory's designers turn your picture into a production drawing: exact dimensions, construction, materials. You review it and approve it before anything is cut. This drawing is your protection. If the finished piece does not match the drawing you approved, the fault is the factory's, plainly and provably.

Step 4: Choose materials you have approved

Fabric, leather, wood species, marble, metal finishes. A good factory shows you real options, sends photos or physical swatches, and does not substitute materials without asking. Fabric libraries at manufacturing scale run into tens of thousands of options through partner mills, so if you have seen a fabric somewhere, it can almost always be sourced.

Step 5: Sample for bulk, drawing for single pieces

For a container order, insist on one physical sample before mass production. You approve the sample; the sample becomes the standard every following piece is checked against. For a single piece, a sample makes no economic sense, so approval happens on the CAD drawing instead.

Step 6: Quality control during production, not after

Ask the factory how it checks quality. The honest answer involves checks at each stage: frame, foam, upholstery, finishing, before packing. A single inspection at the end can only find problems, not prevent them.

Step 7: Packing decides whether it arrives beautiful

Sea freight is weeks of motion. Furniture survives it in layered packaging: reinforced cardboard for resilient pieces, wood-frame reinforcement for most, and full wooden crates for stone, glass and premium upholstery. Ask what packaging your quotation includes.

Step 8: Shipping, even if you have never imported

You do not need to understand freight to buy furniture from China. A freight forwarder handles booking, documents, customs and delivery. Factories that export regularly can connect you with forwarders they trust, and you are free to bring your own.