Teak furniture from Thailand: the margin that vanishes at customs

€200 Thai furniture: the opportunity that gets stuck at customs

In Thailand, a two-metre solid teak table costs 200 euros. A leather Chesterfield sofa, 350. The dizzying price has led more than one entrepreneur to consider importing designer furniture made from fine hardwoods directly from Southeast Asia. But between the joinery workshop and the Spanish living room lies a stretch full of certificates, bugs and moisture that is worth accounting for before opening your wallet.

Red tape eats the margin

The first warning comes with phytosanitary treatment. The wood must be fumigated before loading onto the ship, but that only kills insects or larvae that breathe; if eggs remain, the problem is worse once they hatch. The solution circulating in the industry is to freeze the goods for a minimum of 72 hours. And that's not all: certificates of origin are not the usual Form A, but require geolocation proof that the wood does not come from deforested land. That paperwork, if handled by an intermediary company, carries a real cost.

A business that already has an owner

Moreover, time is running against you. Those who know the market point out that the Southeast Asian furniture business is already taken: Java and Bali sell by cubic metre, and there are established companies in Europe such as Tikamoon, which has been designing and commissioning pieces in the region for years. In Spain, meanwhile, the average consumer keeps buying flat-pack furniture from big-box stores. Demand for a 2,000-euro teak table is limited.

The preliminary calculation is damning: with laughable prices at origin, the margin should be enormous. But between drying, customs, freight —with the Gulf in crisis— and competition, profitability evaporates. Nobody has closed the equation yet.