Most first enquiries ask the same three things, in roughly the same order. How little can I buy? How does it get to me? And what paperwork arrives with it? The answers decide whether a first order is worth placing at all, so here they are, as plainly as we can put them.
How little you can order
From two pieces per design. That is the minimum on every collection except contract work. A normal order here is forty pieces rather than four hundred, and there is no rule that a container has to be filled with one design before we will quote it.
Mixed containers are how that works in practice. Several designs, from several collections, share one container, so a retailer can test six designs at ten pieces each rather than one design at sixty. Our buyers have been moving this way for a while: smaller orders, more often, with mixed loads four times a year instead of two full ones.
Contract work is the exception. A hospitality programme is built to drawing, starts with one approval sample that your specifier signs off, and runs from 50 pieces, 60 to 90 days from sign-off.
How it travels
Containers leave from Mundra, eight to ten hours by road from our works, or from Nhava Sheva. We load 20 ft and 40 ft high-cube containers, and mixed loads in either.
We quote on three terms, and the difference between them is mostly about where our responsibility ends. Ex works (EXW) means your forwarder collects from our gate at Boranada. Free on board (FOB) means we deliver the goods to the port and onto the vessel, and you book and pay the ocean freight. Cost, insurance and freight (CIF) means we also book the freight and the insurance to your port.
The detail most first-time importers miss is that under CIF the risk still passes to you when the goods are loaded at the Indian port, even though we have paid for the voyage. The insurance we arrange covers you from there, which is the point of it, but if anything happens at sea it is your claim to make.
Under CIF we pay for the voyage, but the risk is yours from the moment the container is on board in India.
What arrives with it
Five documents travel with every shipment. The commercial invoice states what was sold and at what value, and it is what your customs broker declares from. The packing list goes carton by carton, so the container can be checked against it at the other end. The bill of lading is the shipping line’s receipt for the goods and the document you need to take delivery of them. The certificate of origin shows the furniture was made in India, which your broker may need to apply the right rate of duty. And the fumigation certificate shows the consignment was treated against wood pests before loading.
All five are issued against what was actually loaded, not what was ordered. If a piece is held back at inspection, the paperwork says so, and you do not discover the difference at your warehouse door.
If your market needs certified timber, say so at the quote stage. FSC stock is supplied on request, and the claim and our certificate code, FSC-C229285, are then printed on the invoice and the packing list.
How long it takes
Lead times run 45 to 60 days. The order itself moves through seven steps: enquiry and quotation on day 0, sample or drawing sign-off between days 3 and 10, timber released in week 2, joinery and surface work in weeks 3 to 5, finishing in week 6, inspection and packing in week 7, and the container loaded, with documents issued, in week 8 or 9.
The stage that cannot be hurried is finishing. Each coat has a curing time, and the time is the same whatever the shipping date says, so a deadline is best met by signing off the sample early rather than by asking the finishing shop to move faster.
What to send us
A first enquiry does not need to be a full specification. Tell us the designs or the kind of pieces you want, roughly how many, the finishes, and whether you are thinking in 20 ft, 40 ft or mixed containers. We reply within two working days, and the quotation comes with the packed carton sizes and container counts.
Written at the works, Boranada · October 2026
