A tender that specifies only the look gets the opening right and year four wrong. The fields, clauses and quantities that decide the outcome.
Published 22 October 2026 · Sabo Furniture, Foshan
Hotel furniture procurement is judged twice: once when the ballroom opens, and again in year four when the chairs have been stacked and unstacked a thousand times. A tender that only specifies the look gets the first judgement right and the second one wrong.
Two numbers decide the chair order: how many guests the largest room seats, and how the room is reconfigured across a typical month. Sixty centimetres of table edge per guest is the planning figure for round tables, and it is the one that turns a floor plan into a quantity.
Then add the float. Hotels lose chairs to damage, to double seating and to the chair that is found broken at setup. Ten percent is a working allowance, not a luxury, and it is cheaper to buy it in the first container than to reorder twenty pieces later against a different colour lot.
A tender is only as good as the fields in it. These are the ones that change what arrives:
| Field | Why the tender needs it |
|---|---|
| Model and finish reference | The only defence against a substitute at batch three |
| Seat height and table height | 45 cm seat against a 75 cm table; a 5 cm error is visible in every photograph |
| Weight per chair | Decides crew size, trolley choice and freight |
| Load capacity, with the test method stated | We publish 300 kg static; a dynamic rating needs a test report, not a conversion |
| Cushion construction and fabric | Density, thickness, and whether the cover is replaceable |
| Stacking count | 10 to 12 per stack for our frames; storage room follows from it |
| Spare parts availability | Feet, cushions and glides, and how long they stay available |
| Finish warranty, separate from frame warranty | They fail differently, so they should be warranted separately |
Rates and lead times vary by model and by season. A tender that fixes the fields above can be priced accurately by any supplier; one that fixes only the colour cannot.
Three clauses do most of the work. The first is a written finish reference with an approved control sample held by both parties. The second is a spare-parts commitment covering feet, glides and cushions for a defined period, because a chair with no replacement foot becomes landfill. The third is a colour-lot clause for phased deliveries, which stops a 2029 top-up from arriving visibly different from the 2026 order.
None of these is exotic. They are simply the things that are impossible to fix after the container has been unloaded into a service corridor.
A refurbishment usually happens floor by floor, and the chairs arrive in containers. Confirm the packing so that a container can be opened and put into service without re-sorting: chairs bagged in stacks of ten to twelve, cushions in their own cartons, and a packing list that matches the delivery sequence rather than the production sequence.
If storage is tight, say so early. Stacking height and bag construction are decisions made at packing, not at delivery.
Two chairs at the same price are not the same purchase if one needs cushions in year two and the other does not. The useful comparison is cost per chair per year of service, and the input that moves it most is not the frame but the seat: whether the cushion can be replaced on its own, without tools and without sending the chair back.
That is the question worth putting in the tender, and the one most suppliers will answer vaguely unless it is written down.
Enough for the largest room reconfigured the most demanding way, plus a float. A 60 cm table edge per guest is the planning figure, so a room seating 300 at round tables needs 300 chairs plus roughly 10 percent for breakage, double seating and the inevitable damaged chair found at setup.
One model per tier is easier to maintain and to replace. Most hotels end up with a formal chair for the ballroom and a lighter stacking chair for breakout rooms; both should share a finish reference so a mixed room does not read as a mismatch.
Ask for the frame and the finish separately, because they fail differently. A warranty that does not distinguish them usually turns out to cover the frame only, which is the part that rarely fails.
Fix the finish reference and the cushion fabric lot before the first delivery, and keep a control sample on site. Colour matching against a two-year-old chair in a different lighting is otherwise guesswork for everyone involved.
All buying guides — thirteen articles on sizing, pricing, importing and specifying.
