We often have inquiries from groups of friends wanting to share a container. They save lots of money on shipping and paperwork. There are all kinds of friends and all kinds of agreements that they might have. We've found that what works best for most people is for them to have an internet party and select there own pieces off the web until a container amount is reached. Usually the person who organizes everything gets to keep the 20-30 small pieces that we include for free with twenty foot containers as a reward for their work.

       The most common method, however, is for one person to start a container and then add on as other parties order. In this case we start a notepad or word file and 'ping pong' it back and forth until the container is full. We try to make it as easy as possible for the organizer, ie. for each person on the list we group their pieces together and give the total cubic meters for each party, this makes it easier to split shipping and processing fees. In addition we mark the id no. and name of each person on the outside of the pieces they've ordered.

        For the organizer please don't underestimate the amount of work that it takes to organize a container and collect funds from all parties concerned. We feel it is more then fair for the organizer to get something out of it for his work. That, however, is up to the individual parties involved. Some customers add on a percentage of orders of other parties to compensate for their work. Most groups do an even split of charges. We have a generic home page w/ no contact information or prices for those whom need it at www.chinese-furnitures.net

        In the past we did  an order live with ICQ. The customer contacted us by email and arranged a time to be on ICQ. All his friends where drinking cocktails, looking at our page, asking questions, and ordering. It took 3 hours. We would probably try this again in the future.