How to Read a Cabinet Quote from China: Every Line Item Explained
A factory quote is not a price — it is a document. This guide walks through every information block a complete proforma invoice should carry, what each one commits the supplier to, and the missing lines that turn a cheap quote into an expensive shipment.
A complete cabinet quote from a Chinese factory should let you answer five questions without emailing anyone back: What exactly am I paying for (itemized by product category, with specifications locked)? Which trade term governs this price (EXW, FOB, CIF or DDP — they are not interchangeable)? What volume and weight will my freight be billed on? How is payment split (deposit and balance, due when)? And who is accountable (a named contact, an order number, a validity date)?
If any of these is missing, you do not have a quote — you have a number. Numbers cannot be compared, disputed or enforced. Documents can.
What a Complete Quote Must Contain
Buyers comparing cabinet quotes from China usually look at the bottom line first. That is backwards. The bottom line is the least informative number on the page, because it only means something once you know what the document around it includes. Below are the information blocks a professional factory quote carries, what you should see in each, and the trap each one hides when it is missing.
| Information block | What you should see | The trap when it is missing |
|---|---|---|
| Itemized lines by product category | Each category on its own line — cabinetry, doors & windows, flooring, stone, sanitary ware, whatever the order contains — each with its own subtotal in a stated currency | A single lump sum hides substitutions. When one line is later "adjusted," you cannot tell which product absorbed the change |
| Specification locked to each line | Material, finish, hardware brand and series, dimensions referenced to your drawings — written on the quote, not agreed in chat | "Kitchen cabinets, $12,000" describes nothing. Any board, any hinge, any thickness satisfies it |
| Volume (m³) and weight (kg) | Estimated cubic meters and gross weight per category | Freight is billed on volume and weight. A quote without them cannot tell you what shipping will cost — and you will learn the real number after production, when you have no leverage |
| Trade term | One of EXW / FOB / CIF / DDP, stated explicitly, under Incoterms 2020 | Without a trade term, "the price" is undefined. Two quotes at the same dollar figure can differ by thousands in what they actually deliver |
| Payment structure | Deposit to start production, balance due at a stated milestone — both written down | "Payment T/T" with no split means the split is negotiable later — usually when the factory holds your finished goods |
| Lead time per category | Production days stated per product line, not one optimistic date for the whole order | A single "35 days" for a ten-category order means the slowest item quietly becomes your real timeline |
| Validity date | A "valid until" date on the document | Material and freight rates move. A quote with no validity can be repriced the day you return with a deposit |
| Accountability fields | An order or project number, and a named person responsible for your order | If nobody is named, nobody is responsible. Disputes with "the sales team" go nowhere |
| Export and compliance terms | How the factory exports (company export with formal customs declaration), and which compliance obligations are covered | Factories without export rights route through agents — an extra party, an extra fee, and a paperwork trail you may only discover at customs |
This is the information structure a professional export quote carries, drawn from George Group's own proforma invoice practice. We are describing what a quote should contain — not reproducing our internal template, which we share with clients when we quote their projects.
Anatomy of One Line: What Each Field Commits the Factory To
The table above tells you which blocks to look for. Now zoom in. Below is a single category line — cabinetry — the way a professional proforma invoice carries it, field by field. We are deliberately not showing prices, because the amounts are not the point. The commitments are.
| Field on the line | What it commits the factory to | How you use it later |
|---|---|---|
| Line description & spec reference | The product named with its material, finish, hardware brand and a reference to your approved drawings | At delivery, "this is not what I ordered" becomes a document comparison, not an argument |
| Subtotal, in a stated currency | The price of this category alone, separable from the rest of the order | When a re-quote moves money, you see exactly which product moved and by how much |
| Deposit for this line | The amount that starts production on this specific category | Your payment maps to a product line — no "your deposit was absorbed elsewhere" ambiguity |
| Volume (m³) | The factory's estimate of the packed space this category occupies | The basis of your freight estimate — and you can recompute it yourself from carton dimensions (next section) |
| Weight (kg) | Gross packed weight for the category | Required for freight quotes, the bill of lading and your import paperwork |
| Lead time | Production days for this category, counted from deposit and drawing approval | Your schedule anchor — on a multi-category order, per-line dates reveal the real critical path |
| Named solution manager | One identified person accountable for this line | Escalation is a person with a name, not a mailbox called "sales" |
| Order / project number | The reference tying this line to your project in the factory's system | Every payment, QC record and carton mark traces back to the same number |
| Remark | Exceptions, agreed substitutions, special packing notes | Where "we discussed it on WhatsApp" gets written down — or conspicuously doesn't |
Notice what this line does not contain: adjectives. "High quality," "premium," "best price" — none of it is enforceable. Every field above is either a fact the factory stated or a commitment you can test. Do this exercise on your own quote, line by line: for each field, ask "what could I do with this in a dispute?" If the answer is nothing, the field is decoration.
Which Trade Term Should You Choose: EXW, FOB, CIF or DDP?
The trade term is the single most consequential line on the quote, because it defines where the supplier's price stops and your costs begin. The four terms below are the ones cabinet buyers actually meet, under the ICC's Incoterms 2020 rules.
| Term | The price includes | You arrange & pay | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| EXW (Ex Works) | The goods, packed, at the factory gate | Everything: inland trucking in China, export customs, ocean freight, insurance, destination port charges, import duty, delivery | Buyers with their own freight forwarder in China who want full control of logistics costs |
| FOB (Free On Board) | EXW plus inland transport to the port and export customs clearance — goods loaded on the vessel | Ocean freight, insurance, destination charges, duty, delivery | The default for experienced importers — the supplier handles what they can control locally, you control the ocean leg and its cost |
| CIF (Cost, Insurance & Freight) | FOB plus ocean freight and minimum insurance to your destination port | Destination port charges, import duty, inland delivery | First-time importers who want one number to their port — but check the freight line: CIF freight is often estimated and re-billed on actual volume |
| DDP (Delivered Duty Paid) | Everything to your door, including import duty and taxes | Receiving the goods | Buyers who want a single landed cost with zero logistics involvement — you pay a premium for the supplier absorbing every intermediate risk |
Two practical notes. First, risk and cost do not transfer at the same point under every term — under FOB and CIF, risk passes to you once goods are on the vessel, even though CIF keeps the seller paying freight beyond that point. Second, whatever term you choose, look for the freight figures to be marked as estimates tied to actual volume and weight. A serious supplier labels freight "estimate only, billed on actual cbm/kg," because no honest factory can know your final cubic meters before production is packed. A freight figure stated as final before production is a figure that will change.
The Freight Math: CBM, Weight, and Why Shipping Is Always an Estimate
Freight is the one number on the quote the factory does not control — but it is also the number you can check yourself, with a tape measure and arithmetic. Sea freight for cabinet orders is priced primarily on volume: CBM (cubic meters) = carton length × width × height in meters, multiplied by the number of cartons. A carton measuring 0.9 × 0.6 × 0.4 m occupies 0.216 m³; eighty of them occupy about 17.3 m³. That is the entire calculation behind the volume line on your quote.
Three things about this math matter when you read a quote:
- Flat-pack versus assembled changes everything. An assembled cabinet ships mostly air — the same kitchen occupies several times the volume assembled as it does flat-packed. Two quotes with similar product prices can diverge sharply on freight purely because one ships assembled. When a quote's volume line looks suspiciously low or high, packaging format is the first thing to check.
- The volume on a pre-production quote is a forecast, not a measurement. The packing plan — how pieces nest into cartons, how cartons stack on pallets — is only finalized when production is packed. This is why honest quotes label freight "estimate only, billed on actual cbm/kg." The question to ask is not "why is this an estimate?" but "what is this estimate based on?" A factory that quotes volume from your cabinet list and standard carton sizes will tell you so; one that picked a number will not.
- You can sanity-check any volume figure. Ask for the planned carton dimensions and counts per category, do the multiplication above, and compare it with the m³ on the quote. A material gap between the two is a conversation worth having before production, not after.
For LCL (less-than-container-load) shipments, carriers charge on whichever is greater between actual weight and volumetric weight — another reason both the m³ and kg lines matter, and why a quote missing either one is telling you the freight cost is yet to be invented.
Why Factories Quote This Way — the Logic Behind the Document
Every field on a professional quote exists because of a problem it solves on the factory side. Understanding that logic turns you from a reader of quotes into a reader of factories.
The deposit exists because materials are bought with your money, not the factory's. When your deposit arrives, the factory orders board, hardware and finishes for your project. A deposit that covers material procurement is not the factory being difficult — it is the factory declining to be your bank. This is also why deposit negotiations have a floor: below the cost of your materials, the factory is financing your order, and factories that accept that deal on a first order are often the ones planning to recover it elsewhere.
The balance is due around shipping because that is where the factory's leverage ends. Once the container leaves, an overseas buyer can delay, dispute or simply disappear, and a container of custom cabinets — built to your drawings, unsellable to anyone else — has almost no recovery value. The balance-before-release structure is the factory's only real protection, which is why it survives every negotiation. What you can negotiate is the milestone the balance is tied to: against shipping documents you can verify (bill of lading, packing photos, QC records), not against a date on a calendar.
Validity dates exist because three inputs move constantly: board and hardware prices, the exchange rate, and ocean freight rates. A factory that honors a months-old quote is either eating the difference or quietly recovering it in the specification. Short validity is not pressure tactics; it is the honest shelf life of the numbers.
Lead times differ by category because some things are made and others are bought. A whole-house supplier manufactures cabinetry in-house but procures appliances, and sometimes stone or specialty hardware, from partner factories. In-house categories run on the factory's own schedule; procured categories run on someone else's. Per-category lead times on the quote are how this reality shows up on paper — and why a single "35 days for everything" promise should make you ask which categories that number is actually about.
Itemization costs the factory nothing — which is exactly why refusal is informative. Splitting a quote into lines is administrative work of an afternoon. A factory that will not do it is not protecting its secrets; it is protecting the margin that lives in the blur between what you think you are getting and what is actually written down.
Red Flags: Quotes You Cannot Compare
When we review quotes buyers bring us from other suppliers, the problematic ones fail in predictable ways. Treat any of these as a reason to ask questions before you compare prices:
- One total, no breakdown. A lump sum for "kitchen cabinets" cannot be compared, audited or held to account. If a supplier will not itemize, ask yourself what the itemization would reveal.
Ask: "Please reissue the quote with each product category on its own line, with subtotal, volume, weight and lead time per line." - No trade term stated. The price is undefined until the term is defined. An EXW number and a DDP number are not two quotes — they are two different products.
Ask: "Please confirm the Incoterm and the named port or place on the proforma invoice, per Incoterms 2020." - No volume or weight figures. Freight will arrive as a surprise after production, when your goods are packed and your leverage is gone.
Ask: "Please state the estimated CBM and gross weight per category, and confirm freight will be billed on actual measured volume and weight." - No validity date. An open-ended quote can be repriced whenever the supplier chooses — usually after you have invested time in the relationship.
Ask: "Please add a validity date to the quotation. When it expires, I would like any re-quote to show changes line by line." - No named person or order reference. Accountability starts with a name and a number. "Our team will handle it" is how orders fall between chairs.
Ask: "Who is the named person responsible for my order, and what is the project or order number I should reference in payments and correspondence?" - Deposit demand that breaks the normal structure. The standard shape of an export order is deposit to start production, balance against a defined milestone. A first-time supplier asking for most or all of the money upfront is asking you to finance their risk, not yours.
Ask: "Please confirm the payment milestones in writing — deposit to start production, and the balance due against which specific shipping documents?" - The payment beneficiary is not the company on the quote. The bank account name should match the company named on the proforma invoice — matching the business license and export declaration behind it. "Pay this personal account" or "pay our agent's company" is how payments become unrecoverable and warranties unenforceable.
Ask: "Please confirm the beneficiary name on the bank account is the same company named on the proforma invoice, and provide the business license for that entity."
One flag that is not on this list: a higher price. A higher quote that is fully specified, correctly termed and honestly estimated is usually the cheaper order by the time the container arrives. If you are still at the stage of choosing which factories to request quotes from at all, our factory audit guide covers the verification steps that come before quoting.
Holding a Quote Right Now? Let Us Mark It Up — Free
Send us the quote you received — from us or from anyone else. We will go through it against the checklist above and reply with which blocks are present, which are missing, and what each missing line will likely cost you later. No order required; the markup is yours to keep either way.
How to Actually Compare Two Quotes
Once you have two complete quotes, comparison is a three-step alignment, not a glance at totals:
1. Align the trade term. Convert both to the same term mentally — or ask one supplier to re-quote. Comparing an EXW price with a CIF price compares a factory-gate number with a delivered-to-port number; the difference is logistics, not value.
2. Align the specification. Line by line: same board, same thickness, same hardware brand and series, same finish system, same quantities from the same drawings. Every unaligned line is a place the cheaper quote may simply be quoting less product.
3. Compare the totals — and the estimates. With term and spec aligned, compare totals, then check which figures each quote marks as estimates (freight especially) and what those estimates are based on. The quote that tells you honestly what it does not know yet is the one less likely to surprise you.
For what the numbers themselves should look like once you have aligned quotes — typical price levels and where the cost in a cabinet order actually sits — see our custom cabinet cost breakdown, and our guide to buying cabinets from China for the full process around the quote.
Have a Quote You Want a Second Set of Eyes On?
Send us your drawings — or the quote you already have. We will return a fully itemized proposal: every category on its own line, specifications locked, volume and weight stated, trade term explicit, with a named project manager responsible for your order.
Whole-House Orders: One Quote, Ten Categories
Everything so far applies to any cabinet quote. But many buyers reading this are not buying cabinets alone — a villa, a hotel floor or a multi-unit project needs doors, windows, flooring, stone, tile, sanitary ware and lighting alongside the kitchen. That changes the quoting problem, because you are no longer comparing two cabinet quotes: you are coordinating ten suppliers' quotes, ten deposits, ten lead times and ten versions of "estimate only."
This is where a one-stop supplier's single proforma invoice earns its place — not as a marketing claim, but as four practical mechanisms:
- Consolidated volume and weight. Ten suppliers quote you ten separate freight estimates, each padded with their own minimums. One combined packing plan — cabinets nested with tile, stone crated against furniture — produces one honest CBM figure, and mixed loading typically uses container space that ten separate LCL shipments cannot.
- One critical path instead of ten. With per-category lead times on one document, you can see which category actually sets your ship date and sequence the rest around it. Across ten separate quotes, the slowest supplier is the one you forgot to chase.
- One deposit structure to track. Per-category deposits and balances on one PI reconcile against one project number — instead of ten payment trails across ten companies, each with its own beneficiary name to verify.
- One accountable person. When the cabinets arrive but the matching stone does not, ten suppliers means ten mailboxes and ten versions of "not our responsibility." One solution manager owning the whole list means one phone call.
The fair warning goes with the mechanism: consolidation only helps if the single quote carries every information block described above, per category. A one-line lump sum from a one-stop supplier combines the worst of both worlds — ten categories of blur in a single number.
How George Group Quotes — the Same Standard We Just Described
Everything above is how our own proforma invoices work, because we wrote this guide from the documents we issue. A George Group quote covers up to ten product categories on one proforma invoice — cabinetry, doors and windows, wooden floor and stair, lighting and switches, stone, furnishing, furniture, tile, sanitary ware and appliances — each on its own line with its own subtotal, deposit, volume, weight and lead time, so a whole-house order can be combined, compared and shipped as one.
Every quote states its trade term explicitly — EXW, FOB, CIF or DDP under Incoterms 2020, your choice — marks freight figures as estimates billed on actual volume and weight, sets out the deposit-and-balance payment structure, and carries a validity date, a project number and the name of the solution manager responsible for your order. We export under our own company declaration, so the entity that quotes you is the entity that ships to you — and the company account you pay carries the same name as your PI. The product scope behind those lines is on our kitchen cabinet category page.
And if you would rather see the products before you sign a quote for them: our 30,000 m² showroom in Foshan puts the whole range under one roof — kitchens, wardrobes, doors and windows, tile, stone, sanitary ware, lighting and furniture — with an English-speaking project manager at your side from airport pickup to final selection. Many of our clients finalize their quotes right on the showroom floor, pointing at the actual cabinet each line describes. It is hard to be vague about a specification when the sample is in the room.
We do not claim to be the cheapest quote you will receive. We claim to be the quote you can audit — and we are comfortable being compared line by line, because that comparison is what this article teaches.
Methodology and Sources
This article describes the information structure of a professional export quote based on George Group's own proforma invoice practice for whole-house and cabinet orders. Trade term definitions and risk-transfer points follow the International Chamber of Commerce's Incoterms 2020 rules, linked below. Freight calculations use standard shipping volume arithmetic (carton dimensions multiplied by carton count); the numbers in that section are arithmetic illustrations, not market rate data. No competitor quotes are reproduced or referenced, and no price levels are stated — this guide is about what a quote must contain, not what cabinets cost (our cost article, linked above, covers price levels with its own sources).
- International Chamber of Commerce — The Incoterms Rules (official trade term definitions, Incoterms 2020)
- George Group internal quoting practice — proforma invoice structure and export terms as issued to clients (structure described, template not reproduced)
FAQ
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George Group quotes whole-house and cabinet orders line by line — ten product categories on one proforma invoice, specifications locked, trade term explicit, freight honestly estimated, and a named solution manager accountable for your order.
