Two letters on a quote decide who runs your ocean freight, who insures it, and where your risk starts and ours ends. FOB and CIF are the two we write most for chair orders, and buyers often pick one out of habit rather than from the math. As the factory, we are genuinely neutral here — we will quote either and we make our margin on the chairs, not on the freight — so let me explain how each one actually plays out for you.
What the two terms mean in practice
Under FOB (Free On Board), our responsibility ends when the chairs are loaded on the vessel at the Chinese port. From there your freight forwarder takes over: the ocean leg, the insurance and the destination handling are yours to arrange and control. Under CIF (Cost, Insurance and Freight), we arrange and pay the ocean freight and basic insurance to your destination port, and that cost is baked into the price we quote you. The simplest way to remember it: FOB means you control the shipping; CIF means we hand it to you at the destination port and you take it from there.
One thing to be clear on with both terms: neither one covers your import duty, your customs clearance or your inland delivery. Those are always yours. Buyers sometimes read "CIF to my port" as "delivered to my door," and it is not — the C, I and F stop at the destination port. If you want door delivery, that is a different term (DDP), and for furniture volume it is rarely the right one.
Why we steer most repeat buyers to FOB
It sounds counter-intuitive that the factory would push the option where we do less work and touch less of your money — but FOB usually serves an established importer better, and we would rather you trust the advice than feel sold to. On FOB you see the real freight cost as its own line instead of having it folded invisibly into our price; you pick your own forwarder and often get a better rate through your own volume than we would pass on; and you control routing, insurance terms and the choice of carrier. Sourcing guides repeat this for a reason: experienced buyers default to FOB for the control and the cost visibility. If you ship enough containers to have a forwarder relationship, FOB is almost always the smarter term.
There is a risk-visibility angle too. On FOB you know exactly what your insurance covers because you bought it. CIF insurance is typically basic, minimum-cover, and a buyer who assumes their full cargo value is protected can get an unpleasant surprise after a damaged container. If you care about cargo cover — and on a full container of chairs you should — controlling the insurance yourself is worth the extra step.
When CIF is the right call
CIF earns its place for first-time importers and for buyers without a freight forwarder. If you are placing your first chair order and do not yet have a logistics partner you trust, handing us the ocean leg removes a stack of decisions you are not yet equipped to make well. The trade-off is honest: you pay for that simplicity in a slightly higher blended price and less visibility into what the freight actually cost. Several import guides specifically warn newcomers that CIF can hide costs, and that is true — but for a first shipment, fewer moving parts can be worth the premium while you find your feet. We would rather you know the trade-off going in than feel surprised by it later.
The trade-off, stated plainly
FOB gives control and cost transparency to buyers equipped to use them. CIF gives simplicity to buyers who are not — at a small premium and with thinner insurance. There is no universally "cheaper" term; there is the term that fits how much logistics work you want to own and how much freight volume you can leverage. We quote both on request so you can compare the real landed numbers side by side rather than guessing, and we factor the term into your lead-time plan because the ocean leg sits inside that plan either way.
One practical note that applies whichever term you choose: agree the approval sample and the packing spec first. Incoterms decide who pays for the journey; the sample and the packing decide what actually survives it. Getting the term right while shipping a poorly packed or wrongly specced chair just means you have efficiently delivered a problem.
Tell us your destination port and whether you already work with a forwarder, and we will quote FOB and CIF side by side so you can see the real delta for your order. Reach the export desk via our contact page, review the OEM/ODM process, or email [email protected].