What is moving in Chinese craft right now
Export rules, input prices, trade fair dates and sourcing briefs. Written for buyers who need to make a decision this quarter — not a trend report that takes six months to research and is wrong by the time it prints.
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20 Oct 2026Sourcing brief
Reading a lacquer quote: the four things that actually set the price
Two workshops quote the same box at a 4× difference. Neither is lying. Here is what separates them, and which of the four you are actually paying for.
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In productionPolicy & export
Packaging rules for gift boxes entering the EU, and what they change for you
Board weight, recycled content and labelling — the parts that affect a presentation box, and the parts that do not.
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In productionMaterials & supply
Raw lacquer, silk and bamboo: what the input prices are doing
Where the cost actually sits in each of the three, and which increases a workshop absorbs before it reaches your quotation.
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In productionTrends
What museum shops are putting on the shelf this season
The categories moving in Chinese institutional retail, and which of them travel well to a European or North American shop floor.
How this section works. We publish when there is something worth saying, roughly every two weeks. Everything here is written by the person who did the sourcing, not commissioned from a content agency, and anything we have not verified ourselves is marked as such. If a rule changes and we got it wrong, we correct the page and say so at the top.
The other half of the picture
Market notes tell you what is happening. Craft Notes tell you how to judge what you are being offered — how to tell a hand-carved surface from a moulded one, what a piece should cost, and what to ask a workshop before you pay a deposit.
The two are meant to be read together. A price only means something if you can tell what you are looking at.
Craft Notes covers the judgement; Market covers the timing.
A question this section has not answered yet?
Tell us what you are trying to work out. If it is a question other buyers share, we will write it up — and answer you directly either way.
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