A short list, not a catalogue
Three to five manufacturers, each one visited, each one able to make your range at your volume in your season. A catalogue is a list of factories that answered the phone. A short list is a list we answer for.
01For buyers
What we carry for a buyer.
It is not factories you are short of. It is three names you can order from.
2
weeks from a specification to a short list — with the audit sheet and the origin position behind every name on it.
0%
duty into the European Union under EVFTA. Every furniture line has been at zero since 2025.
2026
EUDR: from this year, no container clears without an origin file that names the plot the timber came from.
The duty advantage belongs to Vietnam and it is permanent. The origin file is the new condition of entry — and it is precisely the piece most suppliers cannot produce. Both are why a desk on the ground is worth more to you than a catalogue.
What you are buying from us.
Not a catalogue, and not a margin on wood. Six things, and we carry all six.
The factory, not the trading house
Most collections shown to a foreign buyer belong to an intermediary, and the building that cuts the wood sits one or two subcontractors further down. We name the building, and we have stood inside it with the machines running.
Your specification, held in two languages
Your tolerance sheet turned into a production brief a Vietnamese workshop can actually work from. The price is negotiated in Vietnamese, the contract written in French. Nothing important is agreed through an interpreter.
The origin file, before you ask for it
EUDR lot by lot, the plots geolocated, the chain of custody written on the invoice. Built while the wood is being cut, rather than reconstructed after the container has sailed.
Inspection before it leaves
Our own people in the factory before shipment — moisture measured, joinery checked, packing drop-tested, against the sample you approved. A defect found in Bình Dương costs a note. The same defect found in Lille costs the season.
One desk, on both clocks
The same person from the first specification to the arrival port, awake in Vietnam when the factory is and in France when you are. A question does not sit a week in an inbox.
From your specification to your container.
Seven stages, and nothing is invoiced to you until a container has shipped.
Day one — an answer
A person, not an acknowledgement. We say plainly whether we hold the factories for your range, and what is missing if we do not.
Week one to two — the short list
Three to five names, with the audit sheet, the capacity in the peak month and where each one stands on origin. If the right factory is not in the register, we go and find it rather than send you the nearest thing on the list.
Week three to six — the samples
Prototype, counter-sample, written tolerances, signed off in both languages. What is approved is what gets produced — and the approved sample stays with us as the reference for every inspection after it.
In parallel — the price
Negotiated in Vietnamese, against a cost breakdown rather than a quotation. You see the factory price. Our fee sits beside it, on the same page, where you can read both.
Then — the origin file
Species, plots, lots, tied to the container. Built with the manufacturer before your compliance team asks to see it, because once the wood is cut it can no longer be built at all.
Before it sails — inspection
In the factory, against the approved sample. Photographs, moisture readings, packing, count. If it fails, the container waits: raising that is our job, deciding is yours.
After arrival — the record
Dates, volumes, defects, delays, and how a problem was settled. It goes into the manufacturer's file, and it decides whether they are still on your list next season.
When you have to start.
A shelf date in March is decided thirteen months before it. Count backwards from the date you cannot move.
the following year
Tết
Feb – AprYour brief, and the short list against it
May – AugSamples and approval — the tolerances are fixed here
Sep – NovProduction, and the origin file built as the wood is cut
Dec – FebInspection, then sailing around Tết
Mar – AprOn your shelf, in France
Only the last date is fixed; everything to the left of it is arithmetic. A brief that arrives in June is a range that lands in the wrong spring — and the factories worth having are booked by then.
What reaches your desk.
Two files. You have the first before you commit to anything, and the second before the container sails.
Before you commit
The short list dossier.
- The audit sheet for each factory: capacity, kilns, joinery, finishing line, workforce, safety.
- Real capacity in the peak month, and how much of it is already booked.
- Where each factory stands on origin — the EUDR file, the chain of custody, FSC if it holds one, and what is still missing.
- A sample plan with dates, and the tolerances we propose to hold them to.
- An indicative price, with the cost breakdown behind it rather than a round number.
- And the names we left out, with the reason we left them out.
Before it sails
The shipment file.
- The inspection report, photographed, against the sample you approved.
- Moisture measured on the day: eight to ten percent for a heated European interior, not the twelve to fourteen that is normal in Vietnam.
- Packing and the drop test — what counts is not the piece but the piece that arrives intact.
- The EUDR origin file, tied lot by lot to that container, not to the factory in general.
- The documents, complete, in the order your customs broker asks for them.
Ask us for the audit sheet before you decide anything. We send it blank, so you see what we ask a factory before you see what one answered.
What it costs you.
You pay us; the manufacturer never does. It is the only arrangement under which our opinion of a factory is worth anything to you.
A commission on the order
One rate, agreed in writing before the first container and held for the season. Invoiced once the order has shipped, against the same documents as the order itself.
Beside the price, not inside it
We work on commission, not on resale. We never take title to your goods and we take no margin on the wood: you see the factory price, and our fee sits next to it.
Nothing before there is an order
The visit, the audit, the short list, the sample rounds, the origin file — none of it is invoiced. If nothing ships, nothing is owed. We carry that cost because it is the only honest way to be paid for a recommendation.
A trading house resells
- One price, quoted to you.
- Their margin, inside it, never itemised.
We work on commission
- The factory's price, negotiated in Vietnamese.
- Our commission, on its own line.
One rate, agreed before the first container.
Work outside a programme — a factory developed for you alone, an FSC certification carried through, a range drawn from nothing — is separate work, quoted before we begin. It is never folded into the commission, and never discovered on an invoice.
What we will not do.
A house is defined as much by what it refuses.
We do not resell
We are not a trading house. We never take title to your goods, never buy in order to sell them back to you, and never hand you a price with our margin hidden inside it.
We do not send a catalogue
If the register does not hold the right factory for your range, we say so and go and look for one. We would rather lose the order than put a name in front of you we cannot answer for.
Your programme stays inside your programme
Your prices, your drawings, your short list, your volumes. They are never shown to another buyer, and never used to bid your own range against you. The file is encrypted where it rests, and there is a confidentiality agreement we sign first.
We do not introduce from photographs
Every name on your list is a building we have stood inside. That is the whole of the difference between a recommendation and a directory.
We answer for every name we give you.
What a buyer asks us first.
The seven questions that open almost every first call.
What is your commission?
One rate on the order, agreed in writing before the first container and held for the season. It depends on the range, the volume, and how much of the file we carry — a programme where we develop the samples and build the origin file is not the same work as a repeat order from a factory you already run. You have the number in the first conversation, in writing, before you have sent us anything.
Do you take a margin on the price?
No. We work on commission, not on resale, and we never take title to the goods. The price you see is the price the factory quoted — negotiated in Vietnamese, with the cost breakdown behind it — and our fee sits beside it on the same page. It is also why the manufacturer is never invoiced: a desk paid by both ends of a deal cannot be trusted by either.
How quickly do I get a short list?
Two weeks from a specification we can work from, with the audit sheet behind each name. If your range needs a factory that is not yet in the register it takes longer — and we tell you that at the start, rather than send you the nearest thing on the list.
What volume do you work with?
From roughly one container a month upward, because the programmes we build are seasonal rather than one-off. Below that, tell us anyway: a small first order that becomes a season is worth more to us than a large one that never repeats.
Are you responsible if the shipment is wrong?
We inspect in the factory before the container leaves, against the sample you approved, so it should not reach you wrong. When something does go wrong we are in the room for the settlement — in Vietnamese, with the record of what was agreed and the photographs from the inspection. We are not an insurer and will not pretend to be one: the contract is between you and the manufacturer, and we say so before you sign rather than after.
Can I visit the factories myself?
Yes, and we would rather you did. We arrange the visit, come with you, and interpret. Nothing on a short list of ours is a name we would be uncomfortable standing beside in its own workshop.
What happens to my specification if we do not work together?
It stays with us and goes nowhere: not shown to another buyer, not used to price a competing range, and deleted on your word. A confidentiality agreement is signed by us first, on request, before a drawing or a price list ever leaves your side.