Frequently asked questions

A drawing or a physical sample, plus four commercial inputs:

• Destination market — it decides the food-contact compliance route, and therefore which finishes are acceptable
• Target annual volume — it decides whether hard tooling or flexible fixtures make sense
• Packaging expectation — retail-ready box or bulk carton
• Target landed cost, if you have one — so we can tell you early whether the design needs to change

If you only have a competitor sample and no drawing, send us the sample. Reverse-engineering a starting drawing is part of the job, not an extra.

MOQ is not a fixed number — it is a consequence of three things:

1. Tooling — a new wire-forming jig only pays for itself above a certain volume
2. Finishing batch — powder coating and plating run in batches, so very small orders get expensive per unit
3. Material order — wire is bought by the tonne, and a small order may leave unusable offcuts

Because of that, we quote MOQ together with tooling cost and unit price, so you can see the trade-off instead of receiving a single arbitrary number.

⚠️ 占位内容：具体 MOQ 数值待业务方按产线实际情况提供，本文刻意不填。

Yes, this is negotiable. But it is not a question of whether we allow it — it is a question of whether the cost structure supports it.

A small batch cannot run at the mass-production unit price, because three things push the unit cost up sharply at low volume:

1. Tooling and fixtures — even with no new tooling, changing over flexible fixtures and approving the first article consumes line time
2. Finishing batch size — powder coating and plating run in batches, so at low volume the colour setup, racking and curing-oven time are spread over far fewer pieces
3. Raw material minimums — wire is bought by the tonne, and a small order often means paying for a full coil

Two approaches that genuinely work in practice:

• Run the trial on a SKU already in production — if the target finish colour already has a running batch, no new tooling is needed; this is the lowest-barrier route
• Negotiate the trial and the production order together — putting the trial quantity, tooling amortization and production unit price into one quotation usually costs less than agreeing a trial price first and a production price later

To judge whether your trial order is feasible we need: the target SKU (or an existing model), the intended trial quantity, the target finish colour, and the approximate annual volume if the trial is approved.

⚠️ Placeholder content: the minimum trial quantity, the trial premium over production pricing and the tooling amortization rules are still to be provided by the business owner. No numbers are stated here on purpose — we would rather have you ask us than quote an unconfirmed figure.

Wire and tube

• Carbon steel wire — the default for retail kitchen and home organization products
• Stainless steel wire and flat rail — for corrosion resistance without a coating

Sheet metal

• Stainless steel stampings — drain boards, rails, brackets

Plastic parts

• PP trays, castors and inserts (sourced to your specification)

Finishes

Finish	Typical use	Constraint
Powder coated	Any RAL tone, matte or gloss	Must pass the food-contact route of the destination market
Chrome plated	Premium retail appearance	Scratches expose the substrate
Electropolished	Stainless parts needing corrosion resistance without coating	Stainless substrates only

The finish is a compliance decision before it is a cosmetic one — see Which certifications can you provide for our market?

Wire diameter is derived, not chosen. It follows from the load case:

Expected load per tier
  → span between supports
  → number and spacing of cross wires
  → required wire diameter
  → weld pattern

Two racks with identical outer dimensions can use different wire gauges and behave completely differently under a full dishwasher load or after a year of use.

So the useful input from you is the load case (what sits on it, how much, and whether it goes in a dishwasher), not a target diameter. We will come back with the gauge and the weld pattern that satisfy it.

⚠️ 占位内容：具体线径范围待工程确认后填入。

That depends on the finish, and it is a decision you should make before tooling rather than after:

• Powder coated — generally suitable, but the coating must be specified for dishwasher exposure. A standard decorative powder coat will chalk and chip in a hot, alkaline dishwasher environment.
• Chrome plated — the plating thickness determines durability. Thin decorative chrome will blister around weld points.
• Electropolished stainless — the most durable option in a dishwasher, at a higher material cost.

If your product will realistically be put in a dishwasher by the end user, tell us. It changes the finish specification and it changes the test report you will need for food-contact compliance.

⚠️ 占位内容：各表面处理的洗碗机耐受等级待业务方与实验室确认后填入。

Certification is market-specific, so the answer depends on where you are selling:

Market	Food-contact route	Also typically requested
North America	FDA 21 CFR	California Proposition 65, NSF
European Union	EU 1935/2004	REACH, RoHS
Germany	EU 1935/2004 plus LFGB	REACH, RoHS

On top of the market-specific items we hold ISO 9001 and can arrange BSCI / amfori social compliance audits and SGS material test reports.

Two practical points worth flagging:

1. Test reports are issued against a specific material and finish. Change the coating supplier and the report may no longer apply.
2. Reports are per order, not off the shelf. Documents that are public are listed on the certifications page; others we issue on request with the quotation.

⚠️ 占位内容：具体证书编号与有效期待业务方提供。

Sampling first, yes — and we would rather you did. A quotation is a hypothesis until a sample has been made.

Rough sequence:

Drawing / sample received
  → feasibility note (material, finish, tooling approach)
  → quotation (unit price, MOQ, tooling, lead time)
  → sample / pre-production sample
  → your approval
  → production

Lead time is driven by two things that vary per project: whether new tooling is needed, and the finishing batch schedule. A repeat order of an existing item is a very different timeline from a first order of a new wire form.

⚠️ 占位内容：打样周期与量产交期的具体天数待业务方按产线实际能力提供。本文不填猜测值。

Yes, and on bulky wire products it is usually the largest controllable cost in the whole programme.

A welded wire frame is mostly air. Shipping that air across an ocean is pure waste. A KD (knock-down) structure ships flat, which cuts container volume substantially — so when you compare suppliers, compare cubic metres per unit, not just unit price.

Two things to weigh before choosing KD:

• Assembly effort moves to your customer. For retail this has to be either tool-free and obvious, or a stated feature (“assembles in under a minute”).
• Rigidity perception. A KD frame must still feel solid once assembled. That is a joint and locking-tab design problem, and it is where the engineering effort goes.

Mixing is not the problem. What actually needs deciding is whether your shipment moves as a full container (FCL) or as LCL.

• Mixed FCL — several SKUs share one container. In most cases this is the cheaper option: you are billed per container, not per cubic metre.
• LCL — when your volume falls short of a container, your cargo shares one with other shippers. LCL is billed per cubic metre and carries a minimum chargeable volume; destination deconsolidation and handling fees are usually higher than for FCL. The closer your volume gets to a full container, the worse the LCL unit cost becomes.

What determines cost is volume utilization, not piece count: flat-pack KD products have the biggest advantage here — how many units fit in one container depends on cubic metres per piece, not on the unit price of each SKU.

To produce a loading plan we need: the quantity per SKU, the carton dimensions and pack configuration (units per carton), the target container type (20GP / 40HQ), and the destination port. We then provide a per-SKU loading plan stating the volume utilization and whether the LCL minimum chargeable volume has been triggered.

⚠️ Placeholder content: the minimum chargeable volume and the LCL-versus-FCL cost comparison are still to be confirmed with the business owner and the freight forwarder.

Two common arrangements, and we will tell you which one fits your case rather than defaulting to the one that suits us:

• Amortised — tooling cost is spread across the first orders. Lower upfront payment, higher unit price until it is paid off.
• Paid upfront — the tooling is invoiced once and the unit price drops immediately.

On ownership: if the tooling is paid for, say so explicitly in the purchase order. Ownership and the right to move the tooling to another supplier should be written down at the start, not negotiated later — that is the single most common source of disputes on custom wire products.

⚠️ 占位内容：模具费与摊销规则的具体数值待业务方提供。