Morocco or China: what actually changes in your landed cost
Two of the three arguments a Moroccan factory would like to sell you do not hold. We will deal with those first, then with the one that does — and it is worth more than the other two put together, because it is the only one that shows up every month rather than once per order.
Customs duty: zero either way
Almost every page comparing sourcing origins leads with duty. On office chairs it is not a differentiator at all, and a buyer who checks will find that out in a minute.
The official figure
Heading 9401 39 — swivel seats with variable height adjustment, other than of wood — carries a third country duty of 0 % in the European Union, in force since 1 January 2022 per the Commission TARIC database, and 0.00 % in the United Kingdom per the UK Integrated Online Tariff. A chair of Chinese origin clears at the same rate as a Moroccan one.
What the agreements are worth here
The EU–Morocco and UK–Morocco Association Agreements are real and they do apply. On this heading they are worth nothing, because a preference is only worth the gap between the preferential rate and the ordinary rate, and that gap is zero. We would rather tell you than let you discover it.
Where origin does still change the duty
Outside Europe it can. The United States apply surtaxes to Chinese goods that Morocco does not face, and markets with their own tariff walls — Egypt and Tunisia under the Agadir Agreement, for instance — may show a real gap. Ask your broker for the ordinary rate in your market: that figure, not the agreement, is your saving.
Ex-works price: not the right comparison
We will not publish an ex-works price, for a reason worth stating: ours follows the cost of materials and a figure printed today would be wrong in a quarter. But there is a more useful reason to set price aside.
Compare landed, not ex-works
An ex-works price tells you almost nothing. What you pay is the ex-works price plus freight, plus the capital you keep tied up in stock while goods are in transit, plus the cost of the stock-out you avoid by holding more. Only the first of those four favours the largest-scale producer.
Freight is per container, not per chair
Both origins ship 360 Challenger chairs in a 40ft High Cube, because both ship disassembled. Freight per chair is therefore the container rate divided by the same number — the difference is the rate itself and the distance, not the loading.
Where we will not pretend
At comparable volume, a large Chinese factory will often beat a 2,000 m² Moroccan plant on the ex-works line. If your decision rests on that line alone, buy in Asia. The rest of this page is about why that line alone is a poor decision rule.
Lead time is a cost, and it is the one you pay monthly
Here are our figures. They are production and transit times, not estimates, and they are the same ones published on our other pages.
| Production | Sea transit | Total to your door | |
|---|---|---|---|
| First order, 100 Challenger | 15 days | ≈ 15 days to Europe and Africa | ≈ 30 days |
| First order, 100 Exclusive | 30 days | ≈ 15 days to Europe and Africa | ≈ 45 days |
| Reorder of a model already run | 1 week | ≈ 15 days to Europe and Africa | ≈ 3 weeks |
| Other destinations | as above | ≈ 30 days | add about two weeks |
Incoterms EXW or FOB Casablanca. Now put your own Asian figures beside these — you know them better than we do. The gap between the two reorder lines is the whole argument of this page.
How to turn weeks into money in three lines
This is not a sales calculation, it is the one your own finance function would run. We give you the method and our figures; the result is yours.
1. Your replenishment gap
Take your current Asian reorder lead time, door to door, and subtract roughly three weeks. If your Asian replenishment runs seven weeks, the gap is four weeks. That is the figure everything else follows from.
2. The stock that gap forces you to hold
Safety stock exists to cover the lead time. Multiply your weekly unit sales by the gap in weeks: that is how many chairs you are holding purely because your supplier is further away. At 40 chairs a week and a four-week gap, 160 chairs sitting in a warehouse.
3. What those chairs cost you
Multiply by your own purchase cost per chair, and you have the capital immobilised. Add your warehousing cost per chair per month, and the risk of holding a colour or a fabric that stops selling. Compare the total with the ex-works difference per chair, multiplied by your annual volume. Often the second number is the smaller one — and that is the whole point.
And that decide more orders than price does
Who answers a specification question
We own the line, the moulds, the upholstery workshop and the assembly. A question about a mechanism, a foam density or a test report reaches the people who built the chair, in a working day. A trading company has to ask a factory it does not control, in a time zone it does not share — and the answer arrives after your tender has closed.
Spare parts in five years
Gas lifts, castors, armrests, mechanisms and upholstery are our own components, and we own the moulds the plastic parts come from. What usually ends a fleet of chairs is not the chair but a part nobody can source any more. Ask any supplier to confirm part availability in writing, and see who can.
Second source, not replacement
Most of our European importers did not leave Asia. They added a second origin on a different continent, with a different set of risks — port congestion, surtaxes, a factory that changes hands. One container from each is how a serious buyer finds out which supplier actually performs.
Sourcing from Morocco rather than Asia
Is it cheaper to buy office chairs from Morocco than from China?
On the ex-works line, often not: at comparable volume a large Chinese factory will frequently be lower. On the landed cost over a year, it depends on how much stock your lead time forces you to hold. Our reorder reaches a European buyer in roughly three weeks against five to seven from East Asia, and that gap is what you finance in inventory. Run the three-line calculation on this page with your own figures.
Do Moroccan chairs enter the EU duty-free, and Chinese ones not?
No — both enter at 0 %. Heading 9401 39 carries a third country duty of 0 % in the European Union, in force since 1 January 2022, and 0.00 % in the United Kingdom. Origin is not a customs saving on this product, and anyone telling you otherwise has not checked.
Why will you not publish a price?
Because ours follows the cost of materials, and a price published today would be wrong within a quarter. We would rather give you the figures that do not move — minimum order, container loading, production and transit times — and quote your actual combination within a day.
How many chairs fit in a container, compared with an Asian supplier?
The same, if both ship disassembled: 360 Challenger or 200 Exclusive in a 40ft High Cube. Loading is a function of the chair and the packing, not of the origin. If a supplier quotes you materially fewer per container, ask whether they ship assembled — that is where freight per chair is lost.
What is the minimum order?
100 units for the Challenger operator chair and 20 units for the Exclusive executive chair. Mixed orders across models are possible, and we will give you the exact container plan for your combination.
Can we run both origins in parallel?
That is what most of our European importers do, and we would encourage it. Order one container from each and compare what actually arrives — build quality, documentation, how quickly a question gets answered. It is a better test than any page, including this one.
What about the United States?
There the duty picture does differ, but not in the way most pages claim: heading 9401 39 is duty-free for everyone, and the real gap is the surtaxes applied to Chinese goods that Moroccan goods do not face. Those rates move, so take them from your customs broker rather than from a supplier page — including ours.
Put your figures beside ours
Send us the models, the quantities and the destination port. You get the container plan, the production lead time and an FOB Casablanca price for your actual combination — and if the numbers do not work for your market, you will know in a day rather than after three exchanges.