Sofa and Lounge Chairs: What to Check Before You Place the Order
Sofa and lounge seating carries the highest margin in our range and the highest freight cost. Six things to check before you commit a container — and the models that fit each use case.
Lounge seating is where an importer makes the best margin per cubic metre — and also where an inexperienced buyer loses the most. The product is bulky, the upholstery is unforgiving, and a colour that looked right in a swatch can look wrong across a hundred units. Here is what to settle before you order.
1. Single lounge chair or two-seat bench?
These are two different products with two different buyers, and they rarely compete for the same floor space.
- Single lounge chairs sell to residential retail and boutique interiors — reading corners, bedrooms, hotel rooms. Our MSA029 (Patchwork Single Lounge Chair) and MSA030 (Mid-Century Modern Single Sofa Chair with ottoman) cover the two ends of that range.
- Two-seat benches sell into lobbies, reception areas, waiting rooms and bedroom ends, where the width matters more than the depth. Our MSA-Sofa-A (Hand-Woven Design Velvet Sofa), MSA-Sofa-B (Nordic Style), MSA-Sofa-C (Bubble Tufted Love-seat) and MSA-Sofa-D (Hand Woven Cloud Design) are the four shapes we produce for this.
2. What is under the fabric?
Ask for the frame material and the foam density, not just the upholstery. A velvet shell over a weak frame sags within a season. Ours are built on solid wood or metal frames with high-density resilient foam, which is what keeps the shape after a year of daily sitting.
3. Colour consistency across a container
Velvet reads differently under different light, and a dye lot can shift between production runs. If the model has to match an existing interior or a previous order, send us a physical swatch — a photo is not enough. We keep client reference swatches on file and match against them before production.
4. Freight: this is your biggest cost line
Lounge seating is volumetric, so the loading plan matters more than the FOB price. A few practical points:
- Legs packed separately, and where possible removable, so pieces can be nested or stacked.
- Carton dimensions agreed before the order, not after production.
- Mixed containers — combining a small number of sofas with dining chairs or tables lifts the average value per cubic metre considerably.
5. Cleaning and after-sales
Ask how the fabric is cleaned before you sell it. Velvet that cannot be spot-cleaned becomes a complaint in a hotel or a restaurant. And confirm what happens if something goes wrong: for any complaint from a customer we give a solution within 48 hours and take responsibility once the cause is investigated.
6. Sample first
For lounge seating a pre-production sample is not optional. It confirms seat height, depth, foam hardness, fabric colour and frame finish — five things that are hard to judge from a catalogue and expensive to discover in a container.
The summary
| Use case | Suggested type | Our models |
|---|---|---|
| Residential retail, reading corner | Single lounge chair | MSA029, MSA030 |
| Hotel lobby, reception, waiting area | Two-seat bench | MSA-Sofa-A, MSA-Sofa-B |
| Design-led retail, boutique interiors | Tufted / sculptural bench | MSA-Sofa-C, MSA-Sofa-D |
See the full range under sofa & lounge chairs. MOQ is 100 pcs per model; for a first order we usually recommend combining two sofa models with dining seating in one container.
