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.
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.
France already buys from Vietnam — furniture and plenty else. What stands between a workshop and that route is not the market; it is the distance from a factory floor to a French buyer’s desk. For the manufacturers we work with, closing that distance is what we do.
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 and its buying groups buy to a shelf calendar: production in autumn, sailing before and after Tết, shelf date in spring. It is planned a year ahead, so you can plan your workforce against it.
Once your chain of custody and your origin file hold for a French buyer, they hold for the next one. The hard order is the first one; after that the paperwork is done and the season repeats.
The tolerances are written, the inspections are real, and a retail group or a buying group pays against documents and on written terms. They ask more than a cash buyer, and they pay the way it was agreed.
A shelf programme is decided a year before it is sold. Here is when.
Where a trip to your buyers actually goes: three stops and one detour, what history left in each, and what it changes for your order.
What history leftParis has named furniture’s periods since Louis XIV: Louis XV, Louis XVI, Empire. In 1925 an exhibition on the banks of the Seine gave Art déco its name. Style is still read here before price.
For your orderA direct flight from Tân Sơn Nhất lands here, and the fair halls are ten minutes from the terminal. Maison&Objet opens there every January and September: it shows where next year’s ranges are going, and the French retail brief follows in February.
What history leftRoubaix and Tourcoing spun and wove wool for half of Europe in the nineteenth century. When the mills closed, several of the families behind them turned to mail order, then to retail. Every first weekend of September the Braderie fills the streets of Lille, one of the largest flea markets in Europe.
For your orderSeveral French retail groups are still run from around Lille, and Trancent starts here too. The first meeting begins on time, and the questions on the origin file come before the questions on price.
What history leftFounded by François Iᵉʳ in 1517 as the king’s port on the Channel. Flattened in 1944, rebuilt in concrete by Auguste Perret, and listed by UNESCO in 2005.
For your orderFrance’s first container port. The container is cleared here, and the due-diligence reference from your origin file travels in the customs declaration: a file that holds in Bình Dương has to hold on this quay.
What history leftIn 1471 Louis XI let the craftsmen on the lands of the Saint-Antoine abbey work outside the city’s guilds. Cabinetmakers settled in its courtyards and passages, and for centuries much of the furniture of Paris was made there, some of it for the king.
For your orderNot where a retail programme is bought. Where you see why a French buyer turns a chair over to look at the joint before asking the price.
Before you land
Every exchange opens with bonjour: at reception, in a shop, at the top of an email. Vous until you are invited to say tu. A handshake to greet; la bise is for friends.
It starts on time and follows an agenda. A written summary, the compte rendu, often follows: read it closely, because it becomes the reference.
From noon to two, and rarely skipped. A business lunch is where the relationship is built; the figures are settled at the office, in writing.
Much of France is on holiday in August, buying offices included, and decisions wait for la rentrée in early September. A sample that lands in late July waits with them.
Since the Toubon law of 1994, what a French customer reads must be in French: the label, the assembly instructions, the guarantee. Plan the French text with the packaging, not after it.
A comma for decimals, as in Vietnam, but a space for thousands, not a dot: 1 250,50 €. Dates run day, month, year, and the clock runs to 24, so a meeting is at 14 h 30.
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.