Foshan Furniture Market: A Buyer's Guide for Hotels, Restaurants and Offices

Foshan, next to Guangzhou in Guangdong’s Pearl River Delta, is one of China’s biggest furniture centers, and the part buyers visit most is Shunde District. Lecong is where furniture is shown and sold; Longjiang is where much of it, and the materials behind it, is made. This guide is for US buyers furnishing hotels, restaurants and offices: where to go, when, how to tell a factory from a trader, and how to turn a showroom visit into a container that arrives as approved.

Where Foshan’s furniture is made and sold

Lecong sells, Longjiang makes. Both are towns in Shunde District. Start in Lecong to see the range, then go to Longjiang and the surrounding factory towns to see production.

Place	What it’s known for	Go there to
Lecong (乐从), Shunde	A furniture showroom strip running more than 10 li (about 5 km) with over 3 million m² of floor space (CCTV via Foshan Release, April 2025); more than 10,000 furniture businesses and 2,600 manufacturers (People’s Daily via Global Times, August 2026)	See what exists, compare styles and price levels, collect catalogs
Longjiang (龙江), Shunde	Named “China Furniture Materials Capital” and a furniture design and manufacturing center by the China National Furniture Association; ten specialized furniture-materials markets (Xinhua, 2023)	Visit factories; see foam, fabric, board and hardware suppliers
Lunjiao (伦教), Shunde	China’s woodworking-machinery town, with more than 500 firms (Guangdong Department of Industry and IT)	Only if you’re buying production machinery

Lecong draws more than 20,000 visitors a day and ships to more than 100 countries (INFO Guangdong, July 2025). Its best-known complex is the Louvre International Furniture Exhibition Center (罗浮宫), which reported over 2,000 Chinese brands and about 100 European ones (INFO Guangdong, 2017). Around it are dozens of other malls at every price level. For getting there, the Guangfo metro line from Guangzhou meets Foshan Metro Line 3 at Dongping, and Line 3 has stations in Lecong at Dadun and Yuebu (Foshan News via ifeng).

Exports are growing: Foshan’s furniture exports were 10.21 billion yuan in the first half of 2026, up 11.8% year on year (Global Times).

Markets or factories: where to spend your days

Use the markets to see what exists and the factories to decide who makes your order. A showroom tells you what a supplier can sell; only the factory floor tells you what it can make, at what quality, and how fast.

Most buyers on a first trip spend a day or two in the showrooms, collect catalogs and price ideas, then visit a short list of factories. That order matters. In a showroom everything is a finished sample, often the supplier’s best piece. On the factory floor you see the frames, the foam, the board stock, the finishing line and the packing area, which is where problems with contract furniture usually start.

Trading companies vs factories

Many showrooms are run by trading companies or by a factory’s sales office, and from the front they look the same. A trading company is not a problem in itself: for a mixed package (chairs from one plant, casegoods from another, lighting from a third) it can save you time. The problem is not knowing which one you are dealing with.

Question	Factory	Trading company
Who owns the production lines?	The supplier	Someone else, often several plants
Will they show you where your item is made?	Yes, usually the same day	Sometimes, often with notice
Business license scope	Includes manufacturing	Usually trading or sales only
Price	Lower if you buy enough of one category	A margin on top, but one contact for many categories
Who you hold to the sample	The plant itself	The trader, who has to hold the plant to it

Ask every supplier three things: the factory address, a copy of the business license, and whether you can see your item on the line. A supplier who hesitates on all three is a trader, whatever the sign says. We check every manufacturer’s background and quality before work starts; see our factory audit service.

When to go

Plan around the Canton Fair’s furniture phase or the March furniture fairs, and stay a few extra days for Foshan. The fairs show you hundreds of suppliers in one place; Foshan lets you see how they actually make things.

Event	Dates	Why it matters
Canton Fair, 140th, Phase 2 (furniture, building materials, home décor)	October 23–27, 2026, Guangzhou; no exhibitions October 28–30 (MOFCOM)	The gap days are ideal for Foshan factory visits
Canton Fair, 141st (spring 2027)	Not official as of October 15, 2026; usually mid-April to early May	Phase 1 has lighting, Phase 2 furniture
CIFF Guangzhou (59th)	Home furniture March 18–21, 2027; office and commercial space March 28–31, 2027 (CIFF)	The office phase suits office and coworking buyers
Longjiang furniture and materials fair	Twice a year, judging by its numbering: the 50th edition ran August 19–22, 2026 (Nandu)	Materials and components, close to the factories

For phase-by-phase planning, see our Canton Fair 2027 guide. Avoid the weeks around Chinese New Year: factories slow down or close, and anything you see then won’t tell you much about normal production.

How to compare suppliers

Send every supplier the same written spec and compare landed cost, not ex-factory price. Two quotes for “a dining chair” can be far apart because one uses solid hardwood and high-density foam and the other doesn’t, and you won’t see that on the price line.

Compare	Why it matters for US contract furniture
Frame material and joinery	Decides the duty stack as well as the life of the piece: an upholstered wooden chair and a metal chair pay different US duties
Board stock (plywood, MDF, particleboard)	Composite wood needs TSCA Title VI certification and labels
Foam and fabric	Upholstered seating must meet 16 CFR 1640 (TB117-2013) and carry a permanent label (CPSC)
Wood species	Needed for the Lacey Act declaration
Finish and hardware	Where cheap samples and cheap production most often differ
Packing and pieces per container	Knock-down vs assembled changes freight cost per piece
Lead time and payment terms	Compare like for like: deposit, balance timing, quote validity

The duty side is big enough to change the decision. As of October 2026, most Chinese furniture pays 37.5% to 50% in US duties on top of a normal rate of zero (Section 301 plus either the 12.5% forced-labor duty or Section 232 timber; HTSUS chapter 99), and wooden bedroom furniture also carries an anti-dumping order. See our furniture import duties guide for the sources and how each type is treated.

Samples: approve one, keep one

Never go to production without a signed-off sample, and keep a second, identical one where the goods are checked. The sample is your contract in physical form.

When you buy through us, we keep two reference samples: one stays with us in China and one goes to you. The bulk order is checked against our reference at the factory, piece by piece, before it ships. If your goods don’t match the approved sample, you choose a remake, a replacement or a refund, at no cost to you. See our samples service.

For contract furniture, ask for a sample of the exact fabric, foam and finish you’ll get, not a “similar” showroom piece. If you’re buying for several properties, approve one sample per model and per finish.

Quality control before the container is loaded

Inspect during production and again before loading, while fixing a problem is still cheap. Once the container leaves the Pearl River Delta, every defect becomes a claim instead of a fix.

Our own inspectors check production at the factory, and you get photos, video, a written report and, if you want, a live video call so you can see the goods yourself. Typical checkpoints for furniture are dimensions against the drawing, finish and color against the approved sample, joinery and frame strength, foam and fabric against spec, labels (TB117-2013, TSCA Title VI), and packing. See quality inspection.

Shipping from the Pearl River Delta to the US

Containers from Foshan are trucked or barged to the Pearl River Delta’s deep-water terminals, such as Nansha (Guangzhou) and Shekou and Yantian (Shenzhen). Port to port, Los Angeles and Long Beach are about two to three weeks away.

Ocean ships can’t reach the river ports along the Pearl River estuary because of river and bridge limits, so containers go from Foshan to the deep-water terminals by truck or by barge (Shenzhen government). Customs schemes link the two: under the “Bay Area One Port Pass”, Nansha is the hub for river terminals in five cities, including Foshan’s Shunde Beijiao, with one declaration and one release (China Daily).

Route	Port-to-port transit, ONE schedule, May 2026
Yantian to Los Angeles (direct)	13–14 days
Nansha, via Yantian, to Los Angeles	14 days
Shekou to Los Angeles (direct)	18 days
Yantian to Long Beach (direct)	18 days
Yantian to New York (direct)	37 days

Source: Ocean Network Express, North America schedule. Transit days count from the last Chinese port of call. Add time for trucking or barging to the port, US customs, and delivery inland.

Goods ship in full containers (FCL), shared containers (LCL) or, if needed, by air. If your order comes from several factories, the goods can be consolidated in China into one container before loading. See shipping to the USA for how we handle freight and customs.

How we work in Foshan

Our China office is in Foshan, close to the factories and showrooms described above. Our team checks factories, follows production and inspects goods here, then ships door to door with duties paid (DDP) through our sister company American Global Freights and a partner customs broker. We can act as importer of record if you want, and our delivery and installation partners cover the whole US.

If you’d rather see the factories yourself, we plan and join the trip, translate, and help you compare what you see: that is our China factory tours service. Quotes take 8 to 36 hours and are valid for 7 to 14 days, and the minimum order is one pallet.

Key takeaways

• Foshan’s furniture trade centers on Shunde District: Lecong for showrooms, Longjiang for factories and materials.
• Use the showrooms to see the range, then visit the factories that will make your order, and find out early whether you’re dealing with a factory or a trader.
• Time your trip with the furniture fairs in Guangzhou (CIFF in March 2027, then Canton Fair Phase 2, expected in late April 2027), and use the gap days for factory visits.
• Send every supplier the same written spec and compare landed cost, including US duties and compliance (TB117-2013, TSCA Title VI, Lacey Act).
• Approve a sample, keep a reference, and inspect before loading.
• Containers go by truck or barge to Nansha, Shekou or Yantian, then about two to three weeks port to port to Los Angeles and Long Beach.