IMPORT UPHOLSTERY FABRIC
A. WHAT DO YOU EXACTLY NEED TO IMPORT. WHY?
Upholstery fabric has a huge consumer mass. Manufacturing technology of fabric is developing day by day. By this way, fabric models are more various and affordable as compared to past. Consumers give particular importance to these 3 major points when they select fabric;
• Price
• Quality
• Fashion
Because of growing fabric market, there are many fabric suppliers in the world. Although Turkey is one of the big fabric producer, alternative important producer countries were found. After comparison prices and quality of fabric, import seems to be more advantageous.
HS code of the product which we are planning to import as mentioned below;
5407.69.90.90.11 Sentetik filament ipliklerinden dokunmuş mensucat
B. CHOOSE AN IMPORT COUNTRY
Woven Fabric Export is a growing market year by year. Table B.1 shows woven fabric export volume in the world.
Table B.1
After my research, leader fabric exporter countries were determined as China, Italy, India, South Korea and Pakistan. Turkey is the following exporter country after these countries.
Table B.2
China is the exporting leader and there is huge difference between other competitor countries. China holds almost half of the fabric market. It also shows that China has low production costs, manufacturing experience and various models. Therefore, the quality/price ratio of China caught my attention for importing upholstery fabric.
C. Find countries where there are suppliers and exporters of upholstery fabric
After web research, upholstery fabric suppliers information were reached. During my research, I attained one of the big European furnishing fabric and curtains expo which calls Propeste Fair 2017 in Italy after checking the exhibitors of expo, I reached many of European fabric suppliers.
As i mentioned before China is fabric exporter leader of the world. By using Alibaba.com which is one the biggest online trade website, I reached upholstery fabric suppliers located in China. However, this website contains too many suppliers for fabric. alibaba.com has grading system for suppliers and certification suppliers filter. For making business with safe and continues, i researched gold suppliers and assessed suppliers.
D. Select the countries you may buy the products from and compare these countries by the following criteria:
After comparison of conditions between European and Chinese suppliers, preferring Chinese suppliers is looking more advantageous than European even if there is anti-dumping tax and additional custom tax fee when you import this fabric from China. Free Trade Agreement of Turkey does not include China trading because of that there is additional custom fee as 1.25$/kg. Custom charges CIF %70 (max 5-$/kg) for anti-dumping tax. In addition, we have to pay for %8 VAT and %8 tariff if we import this product but this situation is all same for all countries. If documents took from accredited institution which require for passing through the custom is already prepared, custom doesn’t send to laboratory to products for analysis. In addition, Turkey started to quota application to China since 2005. Despite all these conditions as quoata, anti-dumping tax etc. China increased their marketshare in Turkey because their prices approximately 4 times less than other countries.
Because of long distance between China and Turkey, transportation method is getting more important. The most preferred way for transportation is maritime transport. Airway transportation is also possible. It’s faster than maritime transport but it’s also more expensive. Given these circumstances, i prefer maritime transportation. After my research and getting contact with logistics companies, i learned, it takes approximately 30 days.
E. CHOOSE A SPECIFIC SUPPLIER
After