A proforma invoice is a comforting document. It has one number at the bottom, and it is easy to treat that number as the cost of the container. It isn’t. It is the first line of your cost, and depending on where you import to, it might be sixty to eighty per cent of what the goods finally cost on your warehouse floor.
The shipping and customs chain has a dozen steps, each with its own invoice, and nobody sends a single bill at the end. First-time importers get caught out by the small numbers they never budgeted for. Here is the whole chain, in order.
Start with the Incoterm, because it decides everything else
An Incoterm is a three-letter code that says who does what, who pays for what, and where risk passes from seller to buyer. It is not a payment term and not a discount. Four matter for furniture.
EXW (Ex Works). You take the goods at the workshop gate. Loading, inland trucking, export clearance, port charges and freight are all yours to organise. Maximum control, and hard work for a first-time buyer who does not know the port.
FOB (Free On Board, named port). The seller delivers the goods loaded on board the vessel at the named port, for us Benoa or Surabaya, and handles export clearance and paperwork. Freight, insurance and everything at the far end are yours, through a forwarder you appoint. FOB is the most common term in this trade and the one experienced importers prefer, because you choose the carrier, the routing and the rate.
CIF (Cost, Insurance and Freight). The seller pays cost, insurance and ocean freight to your destination port. It looks simplest, and for a first container it often is. Two things to understand: risk still transfers when the goods are loaded, not when they arrive, and you accept the seller’s carrier and rate rather than negotiating your own.
DDP (Delivered Duty Paid). The seller delivers to your door with duty paid. It sounds ideal and is rarely realistic for furniture: the seller must know your duty rates and clearance rules better than you do. Be careful with anyone quoting DDP casually.
A practical view: for a first container, CIF keeps the moving parts down. Most buyers move to FOB from the second order onwards, appoint their own forwarder, and often save money.
Your landed cost, line by line
Landed cost is what the goods cost you, in your currency, sitting in your warehouse ready to sell. Work through these lines and nothing will surprise you.
- Goods value. The furniture itself, usually quoted FOB.
- Export packing and crating. Wrapping, corner protection, timber crates. Sometimes inside the quoted price, sometimes a separate line. Ask which: it is a real cost and a real difference in arrival condition.
- Inland transport to port. Truck from workshop to port, plus loading. Short distances, still a line item.
- Export documentation. Invoice, packing list, bill of lading, certificate of origin where needed, and for Indonesian timber products the V-Legal Document, the export licence issued under Indonesia’s SVLK timber legality system. Every legal exporter here must produce one, and Indonesia has issued FLEGT licences for EU-bound shipments since 2016.
- Ocean freight. The line that moves most. Rates swing with fuel, season, capacity and route, and March’s rate may look nothing like September’s.
- Marine insurance. Small, and never the place to save money.
- Destination terminal handling and port charges. THC, documentation and container release.
- Customs duty. Depends entirely on your country, your tariff classification and any trade agreement in force. Rates on wooden furniture vary widely, and several markets apply zero or near-zero rates.
- Import tax, VAT or GST. Usually charged on the CIF value plus duty, not just on the goods. In many countries a registered business recovers it, which affects cash flow rather than final cost.
- Customs broker and entry fees. Worth every cent on a first shipment.
- Delivery to your warehouse and unloading. Haulage plus the labour to strip the container. A 40ft box is not a two-person job.
- The ones people forget. Demurrage and detention if the container sits beyond its free days. ISPM 15 compliance, the treatment standard for the timber packaging rather than the furniture. Currency movement between deposit and balance. And a damage allowance.
Illustrative landed cost structure
The table below is illustrative only, expressed as a share of FOB goods value, to show the shape of a landed cost rather than predict yours. Duty rates, taxes and freight rates change constantly and vary enormously by destination. Get your own numbers from your broker and forwarder before you commit.
| Line item | Illustrative share of FOB value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Goods, FOB | 100% baseline | Your quoted furniture value |
| Export packing and crating | Included, or roughly 2–5% | Confirm which |
| Inland transport to port | ~1–3% | Workshop to Benoa or Surabaya |
| Export documentation, incl. V-Legal | ~1–2% | Mandatory for timber |
| Ocean freight | Highly variable, often 8–25% | The biggest swing factor |
| Marine insurance | ~0.3–0.8% of CIF | Do not skip |
| Destination THC and port charges | ~2–5% | Roughly fixed per container |
| Customs duty | 0% to 10%+ | Country and tariff code |
| Import VAT / GST | 0% to 25% of CIF plus duty | Often recoverable |
| Customs broker and entry | ~0.5–2% | Per entry |
| Delivery to warehouse and unloading | ~1–5% | Distance and labour |
| Contingency and damage allowance | ~3–5% | Budget it |
Add those up and landed cost sits well above FOB, often around 1.2 to 1.6 times it once tax is included. That is a planning range, not a promise. Build your own version before your first order, and again before your second.
Fill the container, not the weight limit
A 20ft container holds roughly 33 m³ of usable space, a 40ft about 67 m³, and a 40ft high cube about 76 m³. Furniture almost always cubes out: it fills the volume long before approaching the payload limit of around 26 to 28 tonnes. Freight is effectively bought by volume, so cost per piece falls sharply as you fill the box, and a part-filled container is the most expensive furniture you will ever buy.
Plan for it when you order. Mixing dining, occasional and accessory pieces, or using knock-down construction where the design allows, turns a 60% full container into a full one.
Payment terms and lead times
Standard practice is a deposit to confirm the order and start production, and the balance before shipment or against shipping documents. A supplier asking for the whole amount up front is unusual, and so is one asking for nothing, because custom furniture cannot easily be resold.
Letters of credit are used on large orders, but they are expensive and document-heavy; for a single container most buyers and sellers settle on a telegraphic transfer split.
On timing, plan on 60 to 90 days from confirmed order to shipment for container-scale production, plus two to eight weeks sailing depending on routing, plus clearance at the far end. Working back from a retail season, a Christmas range is ordered mid-year, not in October.
Questions to ask before your first order
- Are you quoting FOB or CIF, and from which port?
- Is export crating included, and what does the packing look like?
- Will you issue a V-Legal Document, and can I see a sample document set?
- What is the moisture content of the timber, and is it specified for my climate rather than yours?
- What are the deposit and balance terms, and in which currency?
- What is the realistic lead time, counted from the date the deposit clears?
- Do I get a first-off or prototype approval before the batch runs?
- What progress photographs will I get, and at which stages?
- What is the loading plan, and what volume is assumed per item?
- What happens if something arrives damaged, and how are replacements handled?
That fourth question matters more than it looks. Export furniture is normally kiln-dried to around 8 to 12% moisture content, but a piece acclimatised for tropical Bali and shipped into a dry, heated European or North American interior keeps drying after it arrives. That mismatch is the most common cause of cracking after import. Specify the destination climate when you order; any workshop that exports regularly will know what to do with it. There is more in All About Teak Wood.
Request a container quotation
If you are pricing a first container, send your item list or reference images with quantities and a destination port. We will come back with an FOB or CIF quotation, an indicative loading plan and a realistic schedule. Our export and wholesale services page explains how we work with overseas buyers, and you can browse the collection to see what we make. Message us on WhatsApp; we reply within about 48 hours.