Large furniture exporters are caught in the dual dilemma of overstocked inventory and store bans, and Chunfeng Fulin's three-warehouse strategy breaks the deadlock.
The U.S. outdoor furniture market is valued at 17 billion U.S. dollars. In early 2025, the share of online channels has exceeded 38%, yet almost all products on online shelves are low-cost unbranded white-label goods (Source: industry estimates by Guolian Minsheng Securities, industry survey by Industrial World, 2025; statistical calibers vary across different institutions).
There is an obvious untapped gap in this market. Outdoor furniture is a typical large-sized commodity: a full set of dining tables and chairs takes up large floor space, incurs high transportation costs, and has even higher return costs, which makes it inherently unsuitable for the platform warehouse stocking model. White-label sellers that adopt the asset-light trading model, on the other hand, can hardly achieve design sense, brand building and stable delivery at the same time.
Foshan Chunfeng Fulin Outdoor Furniture Co., Ltd. is precisely targeting this mid-to-high-end price range that features "excellent design, established brand and stable delivery". The company mainly engages in all-aluminum rattan-woven outdoor furniture, with an operating revenue of about 18 million yuan in 2025. It has opened 13 stores on six U.S. platforms, stores its goods in third-party overseas warehouses in the U.S. East, U.S. South and U.S. West, and fulfills orders via the FBM (Fulfillment by Merchant) drop-shipping model.
In this round, the company plans to raise 10 million yuan in financing by transferring 33% of its equity, with a pre-money valuation of about 20.3 million yuan.
I. The real bottleneck for large-sized furniture going overseas is not traffic, but inventory stocking
The essence of cross-border large-sized commodity business is that "inventory equals cash". Capital is locked in three links: first-leg transit, overseas warehouse inventory, and platform account period.
Calculated based on the company's 2025 operating cost of 13.5 million yuan, 35 days of first-leg transit, 60 days of inventory turnover, and 14 days of platform account period, the three links add up to 109 days, and the current working capital occupation is about 4 million yuan. This means that the existing capital roughly corresponds to a revenue ceiling of 18 million yuan — to reach a revenue of more than 40 million yuan, the capital for stocking must be in place first.
What is more troublesome is asset security. The company has abandoned FBA and adopted the FBM plus independent overseas warehouse route: the inventory is not within the platform system, so if a single account is suspended, the goods and funds will not be frozen. The cost is losing the Prime badge, while the return is that the saved warehousing and capital occupation costs can be invested in products and brands.
This is an industry issue for which two different solutions have emerged (the following data are taken from the 2025 annual reports of two companies). In 2025, ZOHO's operating revenue reached 8.701 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7.1%, its attributable net profit reached 336 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of only 0.67%, and its comprehensive gross margin was 34.5%, at the cost of almost stagnant growth. For Aukey Co., Ltd., its 2025 operating revenue reached 13.699 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 27.9%, its attributable net profit was 161 million yuan, a year-on-year decline of 68.1%, and its gross margin dropped to 26.3%, at the cost of increased revenue but no increased profit.
Chunfeng Fulin is faced with the same problem: between scale and profit, which path to take.
II. Four-tier price range plus three overseas warehouses: split risks for resolution
The company's approach is to apply the gross margin rule of ZOHO and the brand matrix of Aukey to the same vertical category — it only focuses on the single segment of all-aluminum rattan-woven furniture, while covering four tiers of price ranges.
The four brands are positioned as follows: EROTR and TWT focus on the mid-to-high end, ERCIMI targets cost performance in the mid-range, and Vmopu is responsible for low-end mass sales, targeting consumers who rent apartments, live in small-sized homes, and are price-sensitive. Stores and SKUs are isolated bidirectionally between brands, so there is no price comparison or internal friction between them. One brand corresponds to one account, so if any brand violates the rules, the risk is isolated within that brand and will not affect the overall business.
This design solves the most intractable problem for white-label goods: once caught in a homogeneous price war, bargaining power will quickly drop to zero. The multi-brand strategy allows the company to develop a batch of products for each price range, instead of using the same set of goods to compete head-on with sellers offering the lowest prices.
The logic on the channel side is to diversify risks. It operates 5 stores on Amazon, 3 on Wayfair, 2 on eBay, and 1 each on Walmart, Home Depot and LOWES — 13 stores on six platforms in total, which keeps the revenue proportion of a single platform at a controllable level, so that a single point of failure will not evolve into a systemic failure.
The category selection itself is also a line of defense. Consumers are shifting from solid wood and wrought iron furniture to all-aluminum rattan-woven furniture, which is rust-proof, weather-resistant, low-maintenance, and light enough to be carried with one hand. The rainy, sunny and high-humidity climate characteristics of the U.S. amplify the performance advantages of aluminum rattan materials. The material is in the process of iteration, while the supply has not kept up, which presents a category-level replacement opportunity rather than just price competition.
Fulfillment is realized through three overseas warehouses and the FBM drop-shipping model: with warehouses distributed in the U.S. East, U.S. South and U.S. West, more than 90% of orders can be delivered within 2 to 4 days, meeting the local delivery assessment requirements of all platforms. Multiple stores share the same inventory, and unified scheduling is carried out among the four brands and six platforms, which reduces the out-of-stock rate and unsold inventory rate.
The results of this model are as follows: 13 stores generate stable orders, the 2025 operating revenue is about 18 million yuan, the gross margin is 25%, the net margin is 10% (calculated based on the company's caliber, and the final figure shall be subject to the audited data verified through due diligence), the customer unit price is 600 U.S. dollars, the inventory turnover period is 60 days, the return rate is 5%, and a 15-person team supports the operation of 4 brands, 13 stores and 3 overseas warehouses.
Capital circulation is connected through a dual-subject closed loop of "Foshan Manufacturing — Hong Kong Trading — U.S. Fulfillment — U.S. Retail". The Foshan-based entity is responsible for R&D, production, quality control and export. After the goods are exported to the Hong Kong company, they are transported to the U.S. The sales proceeds from C-end stores are collected to the Hong Kong company and then flow back to the Chinese mainland. The current sales proceeds directly support the next round of stocking, forming a self-circulation of operating cash flow, and external funds are used for expansion rather than to sustain basic operations.
III. The team that built this model, and the planned use of this round of funds
The two founders have a clear division of labor. The actual controller Luo Liulan graduated from the major of Foreign Trade and Foreign Languages, Guangdong Polytechnic College of Textiles in 2003, with more than 20 years of experience in international freight forwarding and cross-border foreign trade supply chain. From 2003 to 2013, she served as the Operation Manager at Shenzhen Hongshengjie International Freight Co., Ltd. In 2013, she founded Chunfeng International Freight (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd., building Europe and Americas route resources and overseas agent networks. In 2022, she co-founded Chunfeng Fulin with Lin Liuhui, leading overseas market development, cross-border platform operation and cross-border logistics supply chain management.
Co-founder Lin Liuhui graduated from the major of Accounting, Guangdong Ocean University in 1999. He has successively served as Financial Supervisor and Financial Manager at Sinotrans Guangdong Yangjiang Company, Jiayu Logistics, and subsidiaries under Shenzhen Transport Group, taking charge of overall accounting, capital management and internal control system construction for logistics and trading enterprises. During this period, he also independently founded a women's shoe chain store, taking full responsibility for site selection, goods procurement, store operation, cash flow and inventory management. Although the project eventually ceased operation, this experience enabled him to judge inventory risks and cash flow breaks more specifically than founders with a purely financial background.
The value of this team combination lies in complementarity: Luo Liulan is responsible for "how to ship the goods out and how to build the channels", while Lin Liuhui is responsible for "how to calculate the accounts and how to control the costs".
In this round, the company plans to raise 10 million yuan by transferring 33% of its equity, with a pre-money valuation of about 20.3 million yuan and a post-money valuation of about 30.3 million yuan, corresponding to a post-money PS ratio of about 1.7 times and a PE ratio of about 16.8 times. Calculated based on the median target of 40 million yuan in the first year, the post-money PS ratio is only 0.8 times.
The funds will be used in four parts: 5 million yuan for overseas warehouse stocking and inventory, accounting for 50%; 3 million yuan for U.S. brand marketing and advertising, accounting for 30%; 1 million yuan for new product R&D and certification, accounting for 10%; 1 million yuan for team expansion, accounting for 10%. More than half of the funds are invested in overseas warehouse stocking, which is determined by the logic of this business: stocking is not an expense, but a working capital investment that directly determines the upper limit of available goods for sale in the next year. Brand marketing is a necessary investment for the company to move from white-label products to brand premium. To turn the weight and evaluation of the four trademarks into premium, continuous traffic and content investment is required.
The 18-month target is: expand the number of stores from 13 to more than 20, raise the revenue run-rate to more than 40 million yuan while maintaining a 10% net margin, complete the expansion of the U.S. East warehouse to ensure no out-of-stock and no warehouse explosion in peak seasons, and make 1 to 2 brands rank among the top of the Best Sellers in their subcategories.
The company is also addressing a hard constraint in advance: it has no plant or equipment that can be mortgaged, and its bank credit line relies on personal guarantees from shareholders, with limited quota and term. The solution is to apply for the "Specialized, Refined, Differential and Innovative (SRDI)" enterprise title in stages: first pass the evaluation of innovative small and medium-sized enterprises, then apply for the Guangdong provincial SRDI enterprise title, and finally strive for the national "Little Giant" enterprise title, so as to open up access to government financing guarantees and credit loans with the recognized qualification, and convert this round of equity funds into subsequent bank credit lines.
Risks are also clearly stated. The tariff policy of the U.S. on Chinese furniture products still has uncertainties, which will directly compress the gross margin. The company has three buffers: the cost space brought by its small scale, the pricing flexibility brought by the four-tier price range, and the credit access opened up by the SRDI qualification. In addition, platform audit and store suspension, cross-border compliance (transfer pricing of the Hong Kong entity and capital return path), and overstocking caused by lower-than-expected expansion are all on the response list. The company has purchased U.S. product liability insurance, and keeps the consistency of documents, goods and funds.
The competition in the outdoor furniture business ultimately falls on two issues: who can maintain gross margin, and who can survive the cycle. ZOHO and Aukey have respectively given two incomplete answers. Foshan Chunfeng Fulin chooses the third path: apply the gross margin rule of ZOHO to build the brand matrix of Aukey, but dig deep only in one vertical category. The model has been verified by 13 stores and 18 million yuan of revenue, and the next step is to verify whether it can be replicated to the scale of 20 stores and 40 million yuan of revenue.
About Chunfeng Fulin
Foshan Chunfeng Fulin Outdoor Furniture Co., Ltd. was founded in 2022. It mainly engages in all-aluminum rattan-woven outdoor furniture, rooted in the Foshan furniture industrial belt, integrating product R&D, production control, export customs declaration and overseas online retail. The company holds four U.S. registered trademarks, namely EROTR, TWT, ERCIMI and Vmopu. It has opened 13 stores on six platforms including Amazon, Wayfair, eBay, Walmart, Home Depot and LOWES. Its goods are stored in third-party overseas warehouses in the U.S. East, U.S. South and U.S. West, and it serves the backyard scenarios of American middle-class families through the FBM drop-shipping model. Its 2025 operating revenue is about 18 million yuan, with a current team of 15 people. The actual controllers are Luo Liulan and Lin Liuhui. In this round, the company plans to raise 10 million yuan in RMB by transferring 33% of its equity.
Contact: Lin Liuhui