Overview of the Project
Purchased Products
- Porcelain floor tiles in multiple formats (300x300, 300x600, 600x600) plus bullnose stair treads
- Culture-stone wall bricks for exterior and feature-wall cladding
- Stainless steel kitchen cabinets with custom-fabricated countertops and sinks
- Timber, laminate and high-gloss cabinet doors with quartz and solid-timber benchtops
- Bathroom package: wall-hung and vessel basins, freestanding bathtub, toilets and shower tapware
- Lounge furniture and a custom games table for the entertainment room
Project Background
An Australian homeowner building a new villa engaged FBM Sourcing as their building material sourcing agent in China to supply the complete fit-out package — floor tiles, wall cladding, a full stainless steel kitchen, bathroom ware and furniture — sourced across Foshan’s specialist factories, inspected item by item, and shipped in two 40HQ containers.
Buying a whole house worth of materials from China is a very different exercise from ordering a single product line. The bill of quantities for this villa ran across more than ten categories: floor tiles in three formats, stair treads with bullnose edges, culture-stone wall bricks, a stainless steel kitchen with fabricated countertops, joinery doors and benchtops, complete bathrooms, and the furniture to go inside. No single factory in China makes all of that. Each category has its own specialist producers, its own quality standards, and its own lead time — which is exactly why the client appointed a china sourcing agent rather than attempting to coordinate a dozen unrelated suppliers from Australia.
The client flew to Guangzhou and Foshan for a guided sourcing trip at the start of the project. Over several days we walked tile halls, sanitary ware showrooms, cabinet factories and furniture markets together, comparing samples side by side and locking specifications on the spot. Decisions that would have taken weeks of emailed photographs were made in an afternoon, with the client’s own hands on the actual tile, timber and stone.
Project Type
Whole-villa building materials and furniture procurement for a new-build residence
Location
Australia
Project Highlights
Ten-plus product categories from specialist factories, guided sourcing trip in Foshan, itemised QC, two 40HQ containers
Project Delivery Time
2017
How It Works?
The starting point was the villa’s drawing set and room schedule. From these we built a category-by-category procurement list: floor areas and tile quantities per room, linear metres of stair treads, the kitchen elevation with appliance cut-outs, bathroom fixture counts, and a furniture schedule for the living and entertainment areas. Working as a furniture sourcing agent as well as a materials agent meant one consolidated list — and one accountable partner — instead of parallel orders scattered across trading companies.
Because the buyer was building new, every specification was set against Australian site conditions: tile formats matched to the layout plan, cabinet dimensions matched to the kitchen elevations, and finishes chosen to suit a coastal climate.
Planning a similar commercial project?
FBM Sourcing works with project owners, developers, main contractors and FF&E contractors on hotel, apartment, school, office and other commercial building projects. Send us your BOQ, drawings or product list — we’ll come back with a sourcing plan and budget estimate.
We planned the Foshan sourcing trip around the categories on the list. In the tile halls the client compared porcelain floor tiles in 300×300, 300×600 and 600×600 formats, selected a dark grey series for the main floors, and confirmed matching bullnose stair treads against a mocked-up staircase display. In the sanitary ware district we shortlisted wall-hung and vessel basins, a freestanding bathtub, toilets and shower tapware. At the cabinet factories the client handled timber shaker doors, high-gloss laminate fronts, quartz and solid-timber benchtop samples, and settled on a stainless steel cabinet system for the kitchen — a smart choice for durability and termite resistance. Furniture showrooms rounded out the trip with lounge seating and a games table for the entertainment room.
Every selection was recorded with photographs, sample codes and agreed specifications before we moved to commercial negotiation, so each factory quoted against exactly the same document set.
Orders were placed with each specialist factory under FBM purchase contracts: the tile factory for all floor and stair tiles, a stainless steel cabinet manufacturer for the kitchen system, a joinery plant for doors and benchtops, sanitary ware producers for the bathroom package, and furniture workshops for the loose items. Deposits, production timelines and packing requirements were aligned so that every category would arrive at our consolidation warehouse within the same loading window — the discipline that makes a multi-factory order shippable in two containers instead of six part-shipments.
As production completed at each factory, our QC team inspected the goods item by item before release. Tiles were dry-laid to check shade consistency and calibre, measured for dimension and thickness, and checked edge by edge on the bullnose treads. The stainless steel kitchen was verified against the cabinet drawings — countertop lengths to the millimetre, sink cut-outs, door and panel dimensions, and hardware completeness in every accessory carton. Benchtop samples were matched against approved references, the freestanding bathtub was checked for surface finish and fittings, and the culture-stone wall bricks were laid out to approve the colour blend before packing. Defective pieces were rejected at the factory, where replacement is a production matter — not a shipping claim.
All categories were consolidated and loaded into two 40HQ containers. Tiles travelled on braced pallets at the container floor, with crated cabinets, sanitary ware and furniture stacked and blocked above. Fragile ceramic items were crated in timber, cartons were labelled by room and category against the packing list, and the load was photographed stage by stage so the client knew exactly what was behind the doors before the containers sailed for Australia.
After arrival, the client unpacked against our itemised packing list, room by room. Because every item had been inspected and photographed before loading, the villa fit-out proceeded without the shortage-and-surprise cycle that defines unmanaged China orders. FBM remained the single point of contact for the small number of follow-up questions during installation.
Two 40HQ containers delivered a complete villa package — floors, stairs, wall cladding, kitchen, bathrooms and furniture — sourced from more than ten specialist factories and inspected before shipment. It is the same model FBM Sourcing runs today for full-house procurement projects in Australia and villa projects in the Middle East, at container scale for owners, developers and contractors. To source kitchen cabinets, floor and wall coverings or a complete materials package for your own project, send us your drawings, quantities, destination port and timeline — we will come back with a sourcing plan and quotation support.
