The big Zhuhai shopping adventure!

A few weeks ago Francie and I were invited by one of our Mandarin classmates to her house for drinks. They had a great place with lots of decorations from various parts of Asia including a number of pieces of Chinese antique furniture. They pointed out that this cool dresser only had cost around $250 USD.

Cool furniture for cheap! We were hooked and then, as Francie says, the hilarity ensued.
We began to do some internet searches on the towns, Zhuhai & Zhongshan, where they had purchased the antiques. We then found this great article in the International Tribune Herald that discussed individuals and tours that are traveling directly to Zhuhai to purchase furniture and ship it back home.

So, we arranged to go to Macau, re-enter China, and finally check out Zhuhai’s furniture district. First, however, we researched prices in Hong Kong and Macau for comparison (at the end of this post I will detail that info for anyone doing future searches on buying furniture in China).

We ended up hooking up with our friend’s contact in Zhuhai (Rui Xiang Hang Antique Furniture) and she showed us the three showrooms (about 5 floors worth–a LOT of furniture).

We saw some great pieces like these:

This is a Apocathary Chest that was used several hundred years ago to store medicines. The Chinese characters around each handle is the name of the medicine in that drawer. There were lots of these chests that ranged in color and shape and size.

Here is a cabinet that we ended up buying for about 210 USD (1600 RMB).

We also bought several of these Tibetian boxes.

We also looked closely at these shelves but decided that they were just too big to ship back.

We did decide on this green Apocathary Chest (as well as few other smaller things). This chest was older and cost 200 USD (1500 RMB).

Finally we got a tour of the worshop were a lot of the restoration takes place.

After working with the company to ship stuff back to the States we caught a flight to Shanghai. Now we know a lot more about cubic meters, shipping containers, fumigation costs and asking your friends to drive down to the port to pick stuff up for you (thanks Ed and Olivier).

So, this trip continues to turn out to be part travel and part shopping for the Greg and Francie dynamic duo–I think we have sent about 11 boxes back to my aunt’s house (and that is just stuff for us). Francie and I have made a pact not to purchase anything else for the rest of the trip. 😉 We will see how that goes…

As many of you know, I love data and here is some information for future Zhuhai shoppers so that you can start out better prepared than we were.

We actually stayed in Zhuhai but traveled to Zhongshan (30 minutes away) to the Guhe Antique Furniture Market to the showrooms. We only went to the first place listed below but we have some other contact info for you as well. You may be able to get the showroom to send a car for you which is great if you can’t tell the driver where to go (because you don’t speak Mandarin).

Rui Xiang Hang (Antique furniture)
Contact: Mandy Wu (mobile 13420449683)
Guhe Antique Furniture Market
E79, 2nd floor
Sanxiang Zhongshan, Guangdong
Email: wumanyi888888@163.com
(we are posting all this information with Mandy’s permission)

Mobilias Mei Choi is the name we of a place we got in Macau (right infront of the ruins of St. Paul church). They had three small galleries there and I will discuss some price comparisons below. Here is their Zhongshan info.

Yum Luen Small area
Guhe Industrial District
Shanxiang town, Zhongshan city, Guangdong
Phone 13318406822 (vivian)
Phone (00853) 28357625

You can also try Art Treasures Gallery which has a location in the Zhuhai/Zhongshan area. Look them up on the web for contact info.

Prices–So, while in Hong Kong we went to the very upscale Ol Ling/Contes d’Orient and looked at their stock. Well, they have real, non-reproduction, antique quality items and the prices were very high (more than we could afford 1-5000 USD). They also have letters of authenticity etc. It is interesting to note, from a price standpoint, that their initial price for a Tibetian box was 2000 Hong Kong Dollars (at the time of this blog Hong Kong Dollars, Macau currency and the Yuan-RMB were pretty much equal to each other). In Zhuhai we would find similar Tibetian boxes in Zhuhai for about 300 RMB (so that is about 200USD in Hong Kong compared to 40 USD in Zhuhai). I just want to emphasize again that, expect for the Tibetian boxes, the Antique value you are getting at Ol Ling is much more real than the reproductions you are getting in Macau or Zhuhai).

In Macau we found that medium size Apocathary chests were selling pre-bargaining for 4200 HKD (550 USD) and a large cabinet was going for 3300 (410 USD). In Zhuhai/Zhongshan the costs were much less expensive and the quality was equal or better. The amount of choices were certainly much, much better (don’t believe them when they tell you that the factory doesnt have a showroom). In Zhuhai/Zhongshan the Apocathary chests ranged between 1100-2900 Yuan (160-400 USD) and the cabinets were much cheaper as well often costing 1500-2200 Yuan (200-310 USD). The Tibetian boxes were only 300 Yuan in Zhuhai.

Overall, there was great selection and the prices were much cheaper before any bargaining. But what about shipping? Rui Xiang Hang specializes in large shippments to resellers overseas but I believe the other two companies listed above are much more use to shipping for individuals who are chosing a few pieces. Still, Rui Xiang Hang had no problems getting the shippment together.

In Macau they told us it would be 1430 Yuan (190 USD) per cubic meter with a one time fumigation charge (I think it was 400 HKD). In Zhuhai/Zhongshan it cost about 137 USD for the first cubic meter and about 100 USD for each cubic meter after the first one (2 cubic meters would be 237 USD). There ended up being about 1000 HKD of additional charges for shipping (transport to the port, customs leaving China and fumigation). The final destination for this shipment is the port of Seattle—not to our front door in Seattle.

That is about all the information I have for people looking to buy furniture in Zhuhai. In my opinion, it is really worth it to go there especially if you are looking for a number of pieces. If you do the math it gets cheaper to send more, rather than less, furniture back home.

The only major negative about buying the furniture in Zhuhai is that you must use cash to pay the bill. In Hong Kong or Macau you can use credit cards. Obviously, we were less worried about this since we were referred to Rui Xiang Hang but, nonetheless, we will post in the future about whether our furniture made it to Seattle, whether there were hidden costs, etc.

UPDATE 1: About 18 days after purchasing the furniture our friends in Seattle have received faxes and phone calls saying the shipment has arrived. One friend had to pay a $40 (300 RMB) fee for the custom paperwork. This included the Bill of Laden, Fumigation paperwork, shipping contents and certificate of authenticity.

UPDATE 2:  We hired Global Transportation to help with the customs clearance.  It took a few weeks for this to go through the entire process but $410 later our friends were able to go and pick up the crates.  The $410 was mostly $250 for the Global Transport fee to handle customs.  Very little was actually customs fees.  You may be able to do this cheaper on your own!

Alls well that ends well.  Good luck if you order furniture!