01France
One market cannot be your only market.
55%
of Vietnam’s wood exports went to the United States in 2025 — $9.46bn out of $18.5bn.
3
markets — the United States, Japan and China — take three quarters of the total.
0%
duty into the European Union: every furniture line has been at zero since 2025.
Vietnamese industry figures for 2025: $18.5bn exported, $9.46bn of it to the United States. The European share stays marginal — which is precisely where the room is.
Most Vietnamese furniture leaves for the United States. A French programme is not that same order in a larger size: it is a second market, on a different calendar and in a different currency. A manufacturer with one export market is one customs decision away from an empty season.
Under EVFTA, furniture enters the European Union at 0%. That is not a discount you had to give: it is an advantage the treaty hands to Vietnam and that China, India and Indonesia do not have.
French retail buys to a shelf calendar: production in autumn, sailing before and after Tết, shelf date in spring. It is planned a season ahead — which is capacity you can keep your people for.
Once your chain of custody and your origin file hold for a French buyer, they hold for any other buyer in Europe. The hard order is the first one; after that the paperwork is done and the door is wider.
The tolerances are written, the inspections are real, and a retail group pays against documents and on written terms. It asks more than a cash buyer — and it settles the way it was agreed.
A shelf programme is decided a year before it is sold. Here is when.
None of it is negotiable once the order is placed. All of it is prepared before.
Before the order
Terms
One rate, agreed before the first order.