Ten questions worth asking in every showroom

The value of a fixed set of questions is not the answers. It is the comparability. Ask the same ten things in twelve showrooms and by the evening you have a table instead of an impression, and the differences between suppliers become obvious rather than intuitive.

1. Is this piece made in your own workshop?

The most useful opening question in the district. It is asked routinely and answered readily. It tells you how much room there is to change a specification, how directly a price can move, and who you will actually be dealing with if something needs fixing later.

2. What is the frame made of, and is the timber kiln dried?

For upholstery this is the question that separates products which look identical. Kiln dried hardwood behaves in a dry climate. Timber that has not been properly dried does not, and the consequences appear at the customer’s house rather than in the showroom.

3. What density is the foam?

Seat comfort in a showroom tells you almost nothing, because everything is comfortable for ninety seconds. Density is what determines whether the cushion is still doing its job after a year.

4. Is the fabric from stock, and what happens if it runs out?

This is a quiet one that saves real trouble. If a fabric has to be ordered in, it is on the critical path of your lead time. And the answer about what happens if it runs out mid production tells you how this supplier communicates when something goes wrong, which is the only time communication matters.

5. What is the minimum, and what changes at double that?

Asking about the minimum alone gets you a number. Asking what changes above it gets you a conversation about your actual order, which is a far more useful place to be.

6. What are the packed dimensions?

Not the product dimensions. Furniture ships by volume, so the packed size is what you are actually paying to move. Collect these as you go and the container plan builds itself.

7. What does the packing consist of?

Ask for specifics: corner protection, foam, film, carton grade. Packing is the largest single cause of damage in transit and the item most often left vague in a quotation. A supplier with a clear answer here is usually a careful supplier in general.

8. What is the lead time in a normal month, and in the month before a fair?

The second half of that question is the honest one. Production tightens around fair periods and before Chinese New Year, and a supplier who tells you that plainly is telling you they plan properly.

9. Can I see this in a different finish or fabric?

Even if you do not need a change, the answer maps the supplier’s flexibility. A workshop that can adjust will describe how. A trading company may need to check, which is not a problem, it is simply information about who you are talking to.

10. Who handles it if something arrives damaged?

Ask it early, calmly, as a normal commercial question, because that is what it is. Every experienced supplier has an answer. The quality and directness of that answer is one of the better predictors of how a relationship will go.

How to actually use them

Write the ten in a note on your phone and work down it. It feels mechanical in the first showroom and natural by the third. Record the answers next to the model code and the photograph, because the entire point is that on the plane home you can put twelve suppliers side by side.

One practical note. Questions two, three and seven get their fullest answers in Chinese, because they are technical and the vocabulary is specific. Buyers working alone often get a shorter version of the truth, not because anything is being withheld, but because a detailed answer is harder to give across a language gap. If you have someone with you who can carry that conversation, ask them to push on those three in particular. That is where the difference between showrooms actually lives.