Longjiang furniture: inside China’s sofa and upholstery town

Longjiang is a town in Shunde, Foshan, about 15 minutes’ drive from Lecong’s furniture malls, where most furniture outlets are factory showrooms tucked inside industrial parks. It is where Chinese buyers go to order sofas and upholstered beds after browsing in Lecong: prices are modestly lower than city shops, and most makers will re-cover a frame in the leather or fabric you choose. Expect appointments, poor signage and sales teams more used to dealers than to individual buyers.

What is Longjiang, and why do sofa buyers go there?

Longjiang is Shunde’s manufacturing town: where Lecong has malls, Longjiang has factories with showrooms on top, and it is where much of the upholstery sold in Lecong is actually built. Two buyers from Guangdong who drove over from Lecong marked the trip on a map at about 15 minutes by car, ending at a road lined on both sides with factory stores.

The town feels different from Lecong. A buyer from Jiangxi notes that Longjiang is almost all factory stores, set inside industrial compounds with signs that are easy to miss; taxis are scarce, so she advises renting a car. They found that the showrooms on the factory-store street mostly do business with dealers, and the first question at the door was whether they had an appointment.

Our Longjiang area page covers the town’s layout, and the Foshan furniture manufacturers guide explains how Longjiang fits into the wider cluster.

How much cheaper are Longjiang sofa factories than shops and malls?

Buyers report savings of roughly 10–20% on like-for-like sofas — real, but smaller than the “factory price” posts suggest, and only meaningful if the specification really is the same. The clearest comparison in the research comes from the Guangdong buyer: a sofa quoted at a floor price of RMB 6,900 in a Shenzhen store was RMB 6,100 at the Longjiang factory store whose label it carried.

• A Jiangxi buyer was offered a sofa at RMB 6,500 after a bundle discount; she estimated RMB 8,000+ elsewhere.
• In the same buyer’s favourite showroom — three floors in a factory building, one Italian-style, one mid-century and one in a softer, more decorative style — full-grain leather sofas ran from RMB 8,000 to 12,000.
• A Fujian buyer found dining chairs at just over RMB 600 in one factory and just over RMB 500 in a showroom across the river in Lecong; her neighbourhood’s group-buy was listing similar models at two to three times the price.

The same Fujian buyer adds her own caveat: pieces she saw about 40% below a better-known showroom might be the same shape but not the same quality. Compare any sofa manufacturer in China on frame, foam and cover, not photos. Our comparison of Lecong and Longjiang sets the two markets side by side.

What can you customise at a Longjiang upholstery factory?

Mostly the cover and the size: Longjiang makers will usually put any leather or fabric from their range on any frame they build, and adjust lengths and depths within the frame design. The Fujian buyer describes a small factory packed with sofas where every model could be re-covered, and a rocking chair priced at over RMB 5,000 in genuine leather or roughly RMB 2,000–3,000 in a scratch-resistant fabric often sold for households with cats.

What rarely appears in a showroom conversation is what an export order needs in writing:

• frame material and suspension (sinuous springs, webbing or pocket springs);
• foam densities for seat and back;
• leather type and whether it covers every surface;
• a cut sample of the chosen cover, kept by both sides.

Our guide to judging Foshan sofa quality explains how to check each of these on the showroom floor.

What does the comment section add?

The comment threads under the three Longjiang diaries add practical detail — and one sharp warning about how private buyers are treated.

• Book before you go. A staff member from one of the showrooms replied that many Foshan showrooms need appointments and that visitors should line up a contact first to avoid a wasted trip.
• Delivery varies by maker. Asked whether freight is included, the Fujian author says it depends on the factory; most of those she visited included domestic delivery, some did not.
• Per-truck pricing. The Guangdong author recalls local delivery being charged by the truck, at roughly RMB 400–500.
• Not every showroom welcomes private buyers. One reader who followed a recommendation describes cold staff who insisted on adding her on WeChat before she had looked at anything; the street, she says, is used to trade customers.

How do you plan a visit to Longjiang furniture factories?

Book showrooms in advance, navigate by full company name, and allow one full day for five or six stops by car.

• Appointments. Several showrooms in the research ask for a booking by Xiaohongshu message; one asks visitors to “buy” a RMB 0.1 booking link. In one factory building, the lift would not go to the showroom floors without a staff member.
• Navigation. One buyer lost 20 minutes’ driving because she searched for a showroom’s short name without the word “Foshan” and ended up at the wrong address.
• Factory versus showroom. When one reader asked for a brand’s factory address, the author advised booking the showroom instead: the factory is remote and there may be nobody to receive you.

Our look inside a Foshan furniture factory shows what you should ask to see beyond the showroom.

What should an overseas buyer check before ordering a sofa in Longjiang?

Check who you are contracting with, what exactly will be built, and what happens between the factory gate and your door.

1. The company name. The Guangdong buyer noticed that a sofa in a Shenzhen store carried a label with a different brand name, which staff said belonged to the same company. Make sure the name on your contract, invoice and bank account is the one that builds the sofa — see how to verify a Chinese furniture factory and what “source factory” really means.
2. Delivery terms. Domestic delivery is priced case by case: for three beds, two logistics firms quoted the Guangdong buyer RMB 800 and RMB 1,050 for delivery and installation. Export packing, carton volumes and container loading are separate conversations.
3. Inspection before the balance. Seams, corners and dye lots show up only in the finished piece. Our furniture inspection guide sets out what to check.

How Source Foshan handles it