per unit, all-in: goods, agent fee, freight and duty — the spread is order quantity, not supplier
Variants carry a premium: a lidded version with a window panel runs to roughly $3.40 at 1,000 pieces, and a nested set of three to about $6.00 — though the set ships cheaper per litre.
Basis: aggregated from supplier quotations matched across independent buyer searches in this category over the last 90 days, then costed with current freight and duty rates for the destination shown. Individual figures are not attributable to any one supplier or buyer.
The number that matters is not the factory price. Non-woven storage boxes are bulky and light, so ocean freight is charged on volume — and carton design moves the landed cost more than negotiating the unit price does.
Where the money goes
Goods 58% Agent fee 6% Freight 23% Duty 13%
Freight is nearly a quarter of the landed cost here. In a dense category — hardware, say — it would be under 8%. That single ratio is why this product is worth sourcing differently from most.
What drives cost in this category
Cubic volume, not weight
Freight is billed on the space a carton occupies. A nested or flat-packed version can cut landed cost by more than a full round of price negotiation.
Fabric weight and board thickness
The two components most commonly reduced between sample and production run. Both are invisible in a photograph and obvious in the hand.
Printing and custom colour
Moves the minimum order from roughly 500 to 1,000–2,000 pieces, and adds a setup charge that only makes sense at volume.
Retail packaging
Hang tags, barcodes and inner boxes add more to landed cost than most buyers expect, and are usually specified too late.
Minimum order quantities
| Stocked plain versions | From around 500 pieces. Colours limited to what the factory already runs. |
| Custom colour | 1,000–2,000 pieces, depending on fabric availability. |
| Custom printing | 1,000–2,000 pieces plus a plate or setup charge. |
| Fully custom size and construction | 3,000 pieces upward, with tooling or pattern costs quoted separately. |
Where these are made
Stocked plain goods concentrate around Yiwu, where minimums are lowest and multi-SKU consolidation is straightforward. Custom printing and larger runs tend to sit with dedicated factories in the wider Zhejiang cluster. Which one you use changes lead time more than it changes price.
What goes wrong
- Fabric substitution. A lighter non-woven feels similar new and collapses after a few months of use. Specify grammage, not "good quality".
- Frame board downgrade. Thinner board is the cheapest saving a factory can make without changing anything you can see in a photo.
- Transit crushing. These ship compressed. Carton strength and stacking limits matter as much as the product itself.
- Handle failure. The most common warranty complaint in the category, and the cheapest thing to check at inspection.
All four are catchable at pre-shipment inspection — but only against a written specification that named them in the first place.
