Ordering cabinets direct from China (repost)

9 years ago

Hi, I posted this in "remodeling" but it was suggested it would be a better fit with Kitchens, so I am reposting here, and will update here as things progress.

My original post:

We are remodelling our 70's kitchen on a tight budget. It's a
small kitchen, our taste is modern, and we wanted high-gloss white
cabinets. Ikea was our default choice, but it turns out that with Ikea's
greater wall cabinet depth, their corner wall cabinet was wider than
the space we have between the corner and a window. To go with Ikea, the
only way we could have cabinets turn the corner was to end up with a
blind corner cabinet. That describes one of the things we hate the most
in our current cabinetry, so it was a deal breaker.

I looked at available frameless alternatives - a couple were
Fabuwood's Primo Bianco, and a line of cabinets made in Quebec by
Fabritec and sold through Canadian Home Depot stores called Eurostyle.
The Fabuwood cabinets were close to twice the price of the Ikea, made in
China, came with unbranded hardware (as far as we could see), had
fibreboard construction, and did not have adjustable legs. No, they
didn't fit the budget and had no redeeming features we could see.

I bought a sample Eurostyle cabinet from Home Deport here to see how
it was made. These are not expensive, about the same as Ikea. Also
fibreboard carcasses. I would say this about their assembly: innovative,
quick and, to my eye, dodgy. Instead of dowels and pins into captured
cams such as Ikea uses, the cabinets were joined with dowels and these
rubber-coated pins that slide into a mating hole and when they are
turned, jam tightly into that hole. That's it, in terms of bonding - I
have never seen anything like it before. It's really quick to assemble,
since there are no round cams to insert and line up - just mate the
pieces as supplied and give two screw-heads per panel joint a
quarter-turn each. So: quick, but there is less physical strength in the
joint than I would be comfortable with. Having said that, I assembled
my sample cabinet using wood glue on all seams - the rubber-coated pins
held the joints tight while the glue dried, and the resulting cabinet
seemed square, rigid and strong. So the Eurostyle cabinets became a
potential solution. I asked the Home Depot store staff about the
Eurostyle-supplied hardware - they suggested it was unbranded and that
soft-close would be extra cost. (Since then, I note that the Eurostyle
soft-close door hinge on the HD web site has a visible "Blum" logo on
it, so the store staff may not be the experts - you think??)

Looking at the Primo Bianco and other made-in-China cabinets you see
online (hello, CliqStudios) and at retail, I got to wondering about the
pros and cons of ordering kitchen cabinets direct from China. What would
be the effect of cutting out the middlemen and ordering direct?

I put some real effort into researching ordering cabinets direct from
China online, but found very little to go on. Some dialog in Australia
about ordering from Oppein, but Oppein appears to maybe have some retail
presence in Oz. A lot of slagging of Chinese case-goods online
by local carpenters/cabinet-makers . . . "cheap 5-ply plywood that is
soaked in formaldehyde and de-laminates in no time flat", that sort of
thing. But almost nothing from consumers who went this route, happy or
unhappy. A lot of the criticism seemed to be based on prejudice not
data, and/or came from folks who had a clear commercial interest in
dissuading you from buying Chinese.

I'm a not-infrequent AliExpress customer, and between AliExpress and
eBay, have bought many things over the years direct from China. I
researched kitchen cabinets on AliExpress, and identified four
manufacturers of cabinets in the style we wanted (frameless
construction, high-gloss doors). I shared draft designs with each of
them and invited quotes. I got usable designs and quotes back from three
firms (interestingly, Oppein was the company that disappointed me -
they were slow to respond, and their first-draft design missed the boat
in a number of ways, so I terminated the conversation at that stage).

One of the firms impressed me with their responsiveness, clarity of
communication, and alignment with what we are seeking. They sent me a
number of pictures of completed installations, including one kitchen in
Montreal done in a design very similar to what we are seeking.

Here's how I see them comparing to the Home Depot/Fabritec Eurostyle:

Case construction: (Eurostyle) Fibreboard versus 16mm 9-ply E1-rated waterproof plywood.

Customisation: (Eurostyle) a fairly short list of stock sizes versus
an ability to customise cabinet widths to the space available (which is a
big deal).

Joinery: (Eurostyle) those odd rubber-coated pins versus the
pin-and-captured-cam style that Ikea uses (although I will use liberal
amounts of glue in all cases).

Doors: both use 3/4" MDF.

Hardware: (Eurostyle) questionable, maybe unbranded versus (spec'ed)
100% Blum hinges and undermount drawer glides, all soft close.

Wall cabinet mounting: (Eurostyle) fibreboard back panel sections
that are meant to be screwed to studs versus a choice of either full
plywood weight-bearing backs or top-corner adjustable mounts onto a wall
rail (similar to Ikea, except the back panel would be 5mm plywood
versus laminated chipboard).

Delivery: both are special order, although the Chinese cabinets would
also require 4-5 weeks for transit on the proverbial slow boat from
China.

Risk: much lower for Eurostyle, with HD backing them up, and a much
easier time obtaining any pieces that are missing or damaged in
shipment.

Home-market employment: better for Eurostyle obviously, although I
perceive both manufacturers use CNC machinery extensively, so the human
labour content is not super high (and dimensional consistency is much
better).

Price: essentially the same, after shipping and 9.5% duty are factored in.

On balance: the Chinese vendor is obviously the riskier choice, given
the distance and relative lack of brand name, and the inability to work
locally to resolve issues. But otherwise, the Chinese firm looks to
have the much superior product, and better value at a price that is
fully competitive with Eurostyle (and Ikea) and fits our budget. Through
our back-and-forth dialog via email with the Chinese firm, my
confidence about them and about the product grew to a point where the
risk seemed acceptable. If it all goes to rat, we won't be bankrupt,
just over budget!

So on this past weekend, we signed the order, and sent a wire
transfer for 50% of the order value. Time to shipping is expected to be
about 30 days, then time to ship it another 4 or 5 weeks. I'm expecting
receipt in early July, and will post subsequent notes about how all that
goes, whether the shipment was 100% accurate, what I find putting them
together, and how the end kitchen turns out.

Hopefully, my research and experience will be useful for others. I am
not revealing the company we are buying from in this post -- I want to
wait until I can give them a grade before promoting them. But so far, I
have a good feeling and we're excited about what we are buying.

Again, I hope this is useful to others -- I found so little online about this approach that I wanted to share as we go along.

Featured Answer

Tali Wolder

7 years ago

A Review And Analysis Of Vovo Kitchens China

I had decided not to write a final review of my purchase of cabinets from Vovo Kitchens. I was so disappointed and upset by what was effectively the worst business decision I had ever made that I just decided to forget about the whole awful experience and the money I had wasted. But, on reflection, I realized that by not writing a true and honest review, others would walk into the same trap I did and it was unfair of me to allow that to happen to other people.

Let me start by assuring readers of this review that I am not a novice, I buy and own investment properties, some I retain as rentals and some I flip. In the past 2 years I have redone 5 kitchens and a significant number of bathroom cabinets. In the case of the kitchens, for 3 of them, I purchased cabinets from a local RTA distributor who brings cabinets in direct from China. Almost all are solid wood and an exceptional quality offered at an affordable price. For $20 per cabinet, they will assemble. They also provide complimentary 3 dimensional computer graphics and professional design advice.

For the kitchen in my new condo purchase, I was looking for something a little more custom with some unique design elements. I read a review on Houzz from a Canadian who had purchased a very small kitchen from Vovo Kitchens. His experience overall was fairly good, only a few small issues he had pointed out. The initial service from the Sales associate, Sara, was very good. She was responsive and helpful in answering my many questions. As I was going through this process, I decided to order all cabinetry for bathrooms and closets from Vovo, such was the confidence that I felt dealing with Sara. In addition, she was willing to assist in receiving other items ordered from a variety of suppliers and adding them to my container.

So, my 40Ft container is shipped and the next day I receive an email from Sara with a photo of her holding all the quartz backsplash trims that were not loaded in the container with an assurance in writing that they would reimburse me for the costs of having them made here in the US. They refused any reasonable reimbursement saying the backsplashes were a "favor".

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On my side, we had issues with permits, the electrical had to be redone because years ago the condo owners had removed sliding doors to the patio which was now a living space. This also prompted the building inspector to require new fire sprinklers on what used to be the enclosed patios. These delays required me to warehouse the well packed items from Vovo until we were ready for installation. A delay of 4 months before all items were installed.

The problems started with the half bathroom. Now keep in mind that Vovo had a complete set of building plans, and while I did show them pictures of what I wanted I am not an architect or designer. I was relying on them to coordinate my desired items with the actual structure. We installed the cabinet and it just did not seem right, the shelf unit at the side was made of the cheapest white melamine/formica you could find attached to a white melamine cabinet with wood doors that had a whitish green tinge (not pure white), in addition, the way the cabinet doors opened, they infringed on the room’s door frame. I contacted Sara and included photos. I then went back to the original Vovo plans and realized I had ordered the cabinets in Grey, not white. I assumed that they had prepped the doors for the grey paint and just forgot to do them. In any event, once again, in writing, Sara assured me they would cover the costs of a replacement cabinet. I was able to find a cabinet in the grey I was looking for that was on clearance at Wayfair for an exceptional price. I told Sara that I hoped that the other items that should have been white would be a pure white, not the greenish tinged white I have so far seen.

Next came the 2nd bathroom cabinet which was ordered in a brown, wood grain melamine. The cabinet was installed and we noticed something odd, it seemed really high and it was, 37.5 inches vs the plan requiring a 35 inch height. I once again contacted Sara and her excuse was well, Americans are all tall so they made it higher in addition, I had ordered a thicker quartz counter so it was basically my fault that they could not deduct the countertop height and then manufacture the cabinet accordingly . First, I’m not American, neither is my Boyfriend, I am 5’4” he is 5’7”. Amusingly, we are both probably shorter than most Chinese people. Her next suggestion was that we cut off the base/legs of the cabinet. There is a drawer at the bottom of the cabinet, so cutting off the base would entail having a drawer basically sitting on the floor. Given the costs laid out to date, I decided to live with the ridiculously high bathroom cabinet.

I had a local stone company cut the backsplashes for me. I then sent the actual bills for the new half bathroom cabinet from Wayfair as well as the bill for the quartz backsplashes for the second bathroom cabinet to Sara I also showed her the cheapest cabinet I could find from home depot that would fit the 2nd bathroom, a 42” cabinet, not a common size. Vovo completely reneged on their offer to reimburse me and keep in mind, I would still need backsplashes for the master bathroom. Sara at that stage said the backsplashes were a “favor” not part of my total order. In addition, if Vovo reimbursed the full amount of my additional costs for cabinets at this stage the money would have to come out of her salary, so I reluctantly accepted the totally insignificant $175 that was offered.

Next came the closets, and at this stage, I need to provide an indication of how Vovo supplies product. Boxes come labelled 2nd bedroom closet or whatever is relevant. But, there is no system to how things are packed or planned for each item. Cabinets from the local supplier here have each separate unit packed in a separate box. Not so with Vovo, so if a closet consists of 3 separate closet sets the contractor has to spend an inordinate amount of time figuring out what goes where. In addition, we requested instructions for drawer units and received some picture from the hardware manufacturer but no directions of how to use each piece they sent to make up the drawers. My contractor has built many RTA cabinets and installed at least 12 in the past year. He is no dummy when it comes to this. Once again, cheap while melamine bases with the greenish tinged white wood doors. I once again tried to explain to Sara that the doors were not white. Her response – you will not believe this – If I wanted pure white doors I should have requested it – not kidding. As an aside, I ordered a beautiful white wood front door from a different supplier, it is also a matt white as I requested but it is a 100% pure white, no greenish tinge. The door manufacturer did not require me to specify that white meant white. If Vovo has more than one type of white they supply, shouldn’t that ask what kind of white I’m ordering.

Another problem with the closet doors, I requested magnet spring openings, wanting a clean look with no handles. Vovo did not evaluate the weight of the doors for these springs – not functional at all as the doors are just way too heavy. I will need to purchase handles for every closet door

Tough to believe there is more, but there is. While ordering from Vovo, I asked if they made furniture, having seen a dining table I really liked. Sara quoted on the dining table and chairs but the price was high and I declined. She kept pestering me about this, finally sending another quote that was somewhat better. Communicating with her in the middle of the night, I reluctantly agreed to order the dining table and chairs. I asked the size of the dining table top, wanting to ensure it was the correct size for my space. Now, once again, keep in mind I am not a designer so I relied on them to get the proportions correct. Here are the issues with the dining furniture:

- The table base is way too big for the table top. So, the chairs cannot be tucked in and when you sit either on the side of the table or the ends, your knees hit the base of the table, ridiculously uncomfortable.

- The table and chairs were not finished properly, the wood is rough, not sanded or polished adequately for furniture that cost as much as this did.

- And once again, a size issue, the chair backs are about 5 inches higher than a standard chair should be, so unless you’re 6Ft tall they are terribly uncomfortable to sit on. How hard would it have been for Vovo to acknowledge furniture is not their specialty and refer me elsewhere, or at least find out online – Google is quite magical in this respect – how high the average dining chair should be.

- The upholstery on the chairs was done so badly, even though the sample pictures I sent them had no piping around the edges, they added piping, but really badly that the joins are so obviously visible, they quite frankly look ugly.

The ridiculous proportions of the table and the higher than average chairs render this expensive set virtually unusable.

Master bedroom closets and bathroom cabinets, same issues, cheap white melamine bases and sides with greenish tinged whitish doors. I ordered a number of master bathroom linen closets one of which would be open shelving. I could not use it; the cheap melamine used for the open shelving looked just terrible. For the master bedroom closets, the drawer units and laundry hampers are still not installed because no one has any idea how to use the drawer hardware which is very different from what is used routinely here in the US.

Now let’s get to the kitchen, the cabinets that started the relationship with Vovo. The kitchen that I hoped would look like a high end custom kitchen. Before ordering, I looked at all the sample photos on the Vovo website. I chose flat “white” top cabinets with dark grey, wood grain, melamine base cabinets.

The melamine bases were inspired by an image on their website of a similar style in a lighter colored wood grain look. Given that Sara insisted I needed a 40Ft container that was delivered barely 2/3 full, Sara had indicated that the kitchen cabinets would arrive assembled. I have to list the issues again, there are just way too many:

- The assembly work was just shoddy, screwed in so badly, the cheap, while melamine bases were cracked in many places where the screws were. Also, while assembling, their tools must have slipped somewhat, I have visible small scratches on a lot of the cabinets. AND, DOES THE PLYWOOD I ORDERED REALLY LOOK LIKE PLYWOOD OR AM I SEEING PARTICLE BOARD – WHAT CHEATS!

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- The edging pieces on a number of the grey melamine cabinets were not adhering and coming loose.

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- Vovo manufactures kitchen cabinets with no bases, I was not informed of this, so extra labor and cost for your contractor to use 2 x 4’s to hold the cabinets. They sent cheap aluminum strips to cover the 2 x bases but those just made the kitchen look very cheap, my contractor had to cut and install strips from the extra melamine sheets supplied to cover the bases

- I have commented a number of times about the cheap white, melamine bases for all cabinets. When I chose the kitchen style from the Vovo website, the entire cabinet was made from the woodgrain, it matched. Sara sent me an email during the manufacturing process asking what material I wanted for the sides, my response was clear, I did not mind what the material was but I was very clear in stating it had to match the doors. Vovo did supply additional sheets of the brown melamine to cover the sides of the islands but it does not help adequately as the white still shows around the edges of doors and drawers. So, now I have cheap white melamine showing through the brown woodgrain look doors and drawers, and along the sides of the floor to ceiling cabinets and showing from the greenish tinged white doors of the upper cabinets.

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This was the inspiration kitchen picture from Vovo's website. Note the uniform woodgrain throughout and on sides of cabinets.

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My kitchen in the pictures above, note the cheap white formica on the sides and showing through at the doors.

- The two pot drawers have hardware that is so flimsy, the drawer fronts shake on use and do not open properly or align.

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Pot drawers not aligning, neither does garbage can drawer or doors above fridge which scrape against each other. Note, that Vovo assembled the cabinets.

- Although Vovo assembled the cabinets, the job they did is so bad that no amount of adjusting can get the drawers not to scrape as they open and close, some of the doors which have soft close hinges that Sara assured me were very good quality do not close fully. For some of the bathroom closets, my contractor purchased new hinges from Home Depot and they work perfectly. I will have to do the same for all kitchen doors when I can afford it.

- Vovo had the manufacturer specs for my built in wall oven and yet, the cabinets they provided was not deep enough, my contractor had to fashion rather ugly side pieces to cover the part of the oven sticking out. Sara once again blamed the drawings saying they manufactured to the specs.

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Note, the oven protrudes from the cabinet - not built to specs sent to Vovo

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Contractor had to fashion a white strip to cover protruding section.

- I ordered triangular shelving units for the end of the cabinet run and these would face the living area. When assembling these shelving units, Vovo used massive ugly screws to install the shelves. You have to imagine that the back of the shelf units were visible in between where they adjoined the top and bottom cabinets – horrendous. Sara’s answer to this was that I should just use filler to cover the very large and visible screw holes – not kidding.

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- Quartz counters – holy sh*t, what a disaster. I ordered a large stainless steel apron front farmhouse style sink from Vovo. Look at any of the thousands of images online of this type of sink installed and you will see the sink sits below the counter, with the stone overlapping the top edge of the sink. Well, Vovo had precut the quartz for the sink so that the sink aligns with the countertop. As my contractor installed it he showed me the problem and said it was wrong and would cause water intrusion. In addition, the other counter for the stovetop could not be cut so that the stove top sat in the center, it would be too close to the wall unless I had a fabricator take the slab to his factory and reshape the edge of the quartz. Which he had to do anyway as I had to have new quartz tops manufactured for the sink top so the sink would sit correctly in the cabinets, in addition, Vovo, lazily did not finish the edges of the quartz tops and since I could not use the really ugly shelf units because of the visible huge screw holes, the countertops would need to have finished edges. New quartz counters for the 2 side runs cost me $2,300.

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Incorrect alignment of sink to counter. Quartz precut incorrectly by Vovo.

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New Quartz tops made in US cut correctly for sink, will not allow water seepage into cabinets.

- At some point, when I can afford it, I will have to have all top kitchen cabinet doors, all closet and bathroom cabinet doors sprayed a proper white - that is actually white. I should point out at this stage too that the “white” paint job on all doors is so bad, there are small areas where the wood shows through, they obviously used way too little and bad quality paint; the coat is just too thin. Luckily, I have the excellent, custom made white front door as a comparison; it has a much heavier layer of very good quality paint that appears that it will last a long time.

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I just cannot afford all new cabinets now and that is really what is required. If you’re planning on order from China, make sure you don’t do business with Vovo Kitchens, my list of issues here is just a really small fraction of what I have had to deal with. It’s possible that they usually do decent quality and just believed they could get away with cheap shoddy work for my very large order – who knows, but my business philosophy is that you treat each customer with respect and provide the best quality you can. Vovo Kitchens fell embarrassingly short on this and should be ashamed of the work they did for me.

All plumbing items supplied by Vovo are really cheap quality and do not 100% conform to us standards and fittings. So my advice, don’t order faucets or sinks, in fact any plumbing fixtures from them. Same goes for cabinet hardware. They did offer me more expensive Blum hardware but assured me that their own hardware was excellent quality and would work just as well – it isn’t and doesn’t. But at this stage I am happy I did not pay extra for the Blum hardware – you’ve heard the expression, “it’s like putting lipstick on a pig”. I would have had great hardware on a really crappy kitchen.

I would never recommend this company to anyone and given that I am in Real Estate and work with upwards of 50 customers a year, I could have provided a lot of business referrals to Vovo. As it happens, the company that I ordered electronic window blinds from and the door manufacturer has and will continue to receive referrals from me, good quality and service should always be recommended; Vovo was the only company here losing my vote and unfortunately the one I spent the most with. Sara herself deserves better as she had to keep making excuses and in some cases fabricating dishonest statements to protect her boss and his company. Not only did the owner fail me, his customer, he failed his employees.

Tali Wolder

561-866-9372

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Comments (80)

User
9 years ago
Mark, I assume you have some before photos. If not, make sure you take some for us. It is always nice to see the before and after shots. Best of luck. Glad to hear it is all coming together.
Mark Nesbitt
Original Author
9 years ago
Wacokid - good suggestions, I would have done something similar when building a kitchen in our small summer house. And I like the platform! Way better than the T-bar support I used then, made from a couple of 2x4's.

This kitchen is going into a room with plaster over concrete walls - no usable studs. I'm going to be hanging the uppers on rails bolted to the wall, and the hangers have up/down, in/out adjustability, making it easy to get them aligned perfectly, and very easy to mount - get the rail in place properly, lift the upper cabinet and hook it on the rail, then adjust to perfection. I'll put a Tapcon screw through the back into the wall just for stability.

And mobuddy89 - yes, I took some before pictures. The real "before vs after" will need to wait for the countertop and backsplash, though.
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Mark Nesbitt
Original Author
9 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Just a quick follow-up to my note from yesterday about more handy-person skills required than an Ikea build. I had written, "the base cabinets with drawers do not have the mounting points for the drawer slides pre-drilled in the side panels - I need to measure and locate the correct slide mounting points myself, and ensure they are level." Once I thought about it a little, I realised this is trivial - the slides do not need to be precisely located up/down, as long as they are level and matched. I'll make a little template from some scrap thin stock with the location of the first holes for the rails (37mm from the front edge), evenly spaced at the bottom of three sections (I have three equal-sized drawers), and use the template to mark both sides, front and back, then draw a straightedge to align the slide to (and check it for level before placing the second screw).

Here's the bigger challenge: the perfect up/down adjustment is made when attaching the drawer fronts to the Tandembox sides . . . to make the drawer front perfect to the cabinet sides and the other drawers, the screw-on metal "pins" need to be placed just so. Blum makes a handy jig/template for transferring the Tandembox location to the back of the drawer front, but it's not worth buying that for one kitchen. One could take very careful measurements from the "pin" location to where the drawer sides should be, but that seems fiddly and error-prone.

A web search yesterday turned up some great advice for how to do this:

Take the brackets that screw on to the drawer front and then clip into the tandem box to your local hardware store, find some screws that'll fit in the holes, secure them with the appropriate nuts, and make sure they're just long enough that they'll allow you to rough fit the drawer front to the drawer opening so that when you whack on it slightly they'll leave slight indentations on the back of the drawer front, then . . . bore the holes with a drill (don't forget to set a stop collar so you don't bore through the front!).

The web is a marvellous resource!

And of course, the Tandembox provides minor up/down and left/right adjustments for the drawer front mounting, so there's no excuse not to achieve perfection. :-)
aulline
9 years ago
Oh good to hear you received your order as anticipated. Cant wait to see the final product. Good luck!
freeoscar
9 years ago
Thanks for keeping us up to date on this project of yours. I do wonder how many hours you have spent between measuring, speccing, dealing w/logistics, quality control, etc. that a person ordering through a dealer (or local cabinet maker) wouldn't have to deal with. Clearly for you this is a 'labor of love', but for others trying to follow your path it is something to consider.
Mark Nesbitt
Original Author
9 years ago
Agree, freeoscar. I think if you called in a kitchen designer/contractor and stood back then the homeowner time demands could be small. But otherwise, the measuring time is the same, the spec'ing doesn't change much (I'm sure that the person going this route would also be talking to an alternative source of cabinet supply to understand the pro's and con's, and in that process would be arriving at a design or two, and a wish list), and the quality control doesn't change at all -- my "quality control" related to the assembly and checking of the cabinets as shipped -- this is necessary under all scenarios where the homeowner is receiving and assembling cabinetry.

If the homeowner is planning to deal with a contractor or someone else who will manage the project, and assemble and install the cabinets, then this "order direct from China" is not for them. It demands some time and work, and some renovation skills.

But compared to buying cabinetry from Ikea, Home Depot, Cliqstudios, etc., etc., for installation yourself, the additional labor-time required for ordering direct from China is mostly about the additional logistics. And in my experience, the time required to do the logistics is minimal, it was the time I needed to learn about logistics and how to buy/manage them that took the time. If this project turns out well, I'll post some more about what I learned on that subject - hopefully it will be useful to the next person.
kai615
9 years ago
I'll post some more about what I learned on that subject - hopefully it will be useful to the next person.

So I have been following your posts with interest. As avid diyers here I greatly appreciate what you are doing to help the rest of us out by logging your experience Mark. I also happen to be in logistics and handle these type of consolidation containers from all over the world and of course China every day. If there is anything I can do to answer questions on the process of the actual transportation or import, I would be happy to help. I fear I was following your other post when you need help tracking the container.

Good luck with the rest of assembly. And thanks again.
Mark Nesbitt thanked kai615
Mark Nesbitt
Original Author
9 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Just a quick note, as I start work at my day job, to keep you posted. On Friday Aug 4, we rented plastic bins and packed up the kitchen. In the following ten days, my wife and I demolished the kitchen down to the subfloor, moved an electrical outlet for the stove, repaired some walls, painted the room, got the plumbing rough-in done, tiled the floor with Ultraceramic, installed all the cabinet frames, installed a delightful Kraus sink and faucet, got the plumbing hook-up done, replaced the appliances, made a plywood under-counter (which will support the coming Caesarstone counter), installed lighting, and started hanging doors and drawer fronts. The counter folks are coming tomorrow to measure and make a template, for delivery at the end of next week. We plan on being moved back in by this Friday - that's when those bins are being picked up. So, two weeks elapsed feels pretty good, especially since I am working full-time this week.

The cabinets (returning to the subject of the thread) worked out really well. There was one manufacturing glitch, with the wrong hinge drilling on the pair of doors on the sink base cabinet. But the maker immediately acknowledged the error, is redoing the doors and will express-ship them to us. Right now, I'm very happy.

As of Friday then, I expect we will be complete except for the sink doors (which may take ten days to receive), the countertop (which will take the same ten days or so to get), and the tiled backsplash (which needs to wait for the counter). On the weekend, I'll take pictures of the project at that stage, provide the details of the company and people with whom we dealt, give my overall assessment of the experience, and share my conclusions about this approach to buying cabinets.
freeoscar
9 years ago
Thanks for the update. I too love our Kraus sink- incredible value imo - I got our 32" main sink off of a Woot deal for $200. I think the 26" was closer to full price ($300 or so from Amazon).
aulline
9 years ago
Thank you for the update!
Mark Nesbitt
Original Author
9 years ago
MAJOR UPDATE ON MY EXPERIENCE

This thread is about a homeowner who was curious about ordering kitchen cabinetry direct from the Chinese manufacturer. Earlier posts have described the "why" of the idea, and a fair bit about about the "what" and "how". Today, I want to share my evaluations and conclusions about the experience with the company with which I dealt, and some thoughts about who might benefit from this option (and who might not).

As of yesterday, all of the cabinetry is in place, with doors and drawer fronts attached (still a little fine-tuning of door spacing needed), except for the two doors on the front of the base sink cabinet - as noted in an earlier post, the arrived with the wrong hinge drilling, and are being remade for me. I'm expecting they will arrive (by courier) by the time the backsplash is in.

The counter-top (a Caesarstone quartz counter) has been measured and is being made, for installation next Friday. In the meantime, we are living with the plywood under-counter. So the pictures that follow won't show the kitchen to best advantage, but will accurately show the cabinetry.

Before going further, I want to reiterate that I am not pitching or recommending the right course of action for anyone but myself. I am simply trying to report as clearly and completely as I can about my experience, in case it is useful to others.

Who I dealt with: The company I bought from is VOVO Building Materials. You can see their English website at vovokitchen.en.alibaba.com. I initially contacted them through Aliexpress.com, but since every order is very custom, you'll be dealing direct and communicating a fair bit. The person with whom I dealt is Sara Zhao (email vovo_sales@126.com).

My experience with VOVO: In a word, excellent. As noted in an earlier post, I reached out to four firms with similar offerings, sharing a design and asking for a quote. I picked VOVO because of the quality, clarity and responsiveness of communication (and their price was competitive). That early impression was borne out throughout the pre- and post-purchase process. Sara has great English, communicates very clearly, has been very accurate and true to her word, provided good advice, and has been very patient with me. Since I initially reached out to her in late March, she and I have exchanged notes over 70 times, and I have found her delightful and professional to deal with.

Did I get what I ordered? In a word, yes. VOVO does their designs in AutoCAD, and once we finalised the design, VOVO produced exactly what the drawing specified. Cabinets are custom-sized to the millimetre and produced exactly to that size.

VOVO can produce carcasses in fibreboard or plywood - I chose the 9-ply waterproof E1-rated plywood for an extra change. During the demolition of the old kitchen, I discovered a pipe in a corner of the kitchen of which I was unaware, which meant I had to notch out a back corner of one of the pantry cabinets . . . which meant I had to saw the plywood. I found plywood that was very dense and uniform, with no voids (much better than the plywood sheet I bought at Home Depot for the countertop). The E1-rating is equivalent to CARB, an environmental rating. When I was researching Chinese cabinetry early in this process, I read lots of folks who slagged the quality of Chinese plywood - my sample-of-one experience has been very good. In terms of VOCs, the cabinets have no noticeable off-gassing (whereas the Behr alkyd paint we used to paint the room is still very noticeable after ten days with the window open).

All of the doors, drawer fronts, and trim panels are 3/4 inch MDF, in a high-gloss white finish. Everything is very plain, slab-fronted, as we were looking for.

We could have ordered generic hardware, but we specified, and VOVO was happy to supply, 100% Blum Austrian-made hinges, drawer assemblies, and drawer slides. Everything is soft-close. VOVO included all of the hardware required, including some extra hinges and screws.

The wall cabinets were designed to be hung from wall-mounted rails, using provided adjustable hangers in the top corners. VOVO would have been happy to have provided full-thickness backs instead, for mounting onto studs. Our wall was a plaster layer over concrete, so the rails worked better for us, and the hangers made installation and alignment extremely easy. The generic hangers supplied worked, and they are attractive/unobtrusive, but I was not overly impressed with their quality and were I to do it over, I'd spec Hafele (German-made) hangers instead.

The base cabinet toe kicks are designed to mate with the supplied adjustable legs. The toe kicks are plastic with a ribbed silver finish, and the back carries fittings that snap onto the legs. They are easy to cut and install, are durable and easy to clean, and can be pried off without damage to get under the cabinets in the future (for example, to get to my dishwasher water-supply shut-off valve). Being recessed, they don't visually "read" as incongruous with the cabinets. I wasn't sure about them before I installed them, but we are quite happy with them, both visually and functionally.

VOVO supplied all handles also, and I could choose from a catalog of maybe 50 different styles.

Nothing was damaged in transit. VOVO flat-packed my kitchen in 25 different boxes, each with a lot of Styrofoam protection on all sides, then crated them all on a pallet, with wood on all sides. These folks appear to know how ship things with little or no risk of damage along the way.

What did it cost? VOVO charged me US$2,619 all-in for the cabinets. Of this amount, about $630 was for the Blum hardware I specified. That gave me all the cabinets for a 10x11 kitchen (two walls), plus two 84"-tall pantry cabinets, totalling 39" in width and a bridge panel over a window, behind which are mounted some pot lights for over the sink. Shipping to the Toronto warehouse where I picked it up, plus insurance for damage in transit, totalled another US$615. In Canada, there is a 9.5% duty charged on the importation of wood cabinets from China, so that added $250 to the imported cost. Wherever you are, you'd likely have to pay the local sales tax. So my landed cost was $2,619 + 615 + 250 plus about $100 in broker and local warehouse charges = about US$3,600 in total.

How to judge value? The net landed cost was within about 15% of Ikea's price or Home Depot's prices for the Fabritec Eurostyle low-end cabinets, and about half the cost quoted by a local dealer (GTACabinets) for the Fabuwood Primo Bianco cabinets, all for roughly equivalent designs and cabinet counts.

The VOVO advantages were (+) plywood versus fibreboard construction, (+) all Blum hardware, and (+) fully customisable sizing versus a few stock sizes. The disadvantages were (-) the extra time required for shipping (and the extra time required for manufacturing, compared to buying a stock size off the shelf).

Is it better value? You have to judge for yourself, but for us, the answer was "yes". Especially if your kitchen design requires custom-sized cabinetry, I'd expect this is an attractive option.

A few other thoughts about this approach:I want to flag a couple of other considerations that both relate to the fact that the VOVO cabinetry is custom-sized, and which represent lessons learned for me.
1. You really need to discuss and specify everything. Assume nothing. VOVO is happy to give you what you want, but you cannot assume that you are buying a defined "system" - you need to communicate everything you expect. A few examples from my experience: (a) I assumed the AutoCAD cabinet depth was for the carcass, but it was for the finished cabinet with the doors/drawer fronts installed, so all of the cabinets were a bit shallower than I had expected. My mistake to have assumed something. (b) The wall cabinet interior shelves were made shallower than the cabinets themselves. I had never seen that, or imagined the possibility, while this is normal for VOVO's home market. So it was not something we discussed or specified. {BTW, VOVO was very gracious and helpful, and is remaking some of these shelves for me, and including them with the remade sink door shipment.] (c) I had a stainless steel lazy susan included in the base corner cabinet, but never discussed the size. VOVO supplied their 'standard' size, 28", whereas our cabinet could accommodate a 32" one. I bought the larger one locally. In none of these examples did VOVO not deliver on our agreement, all of them represented areas where I was not thorough enough in specifying what was in my head. If you go this route, recognise that everything is adjustable, and you need to specify everything you expect and want.
2. Unlike an Ikea stock-size cabinet, not every mounting hole will have been drilled. If you make cabinets yourself, this is a total non-issue, but if you (like me) assumed that all aspects of the assembly would be pre-drilled with step-by-step instructions, you'd be surprised. No special tools are required, just a drill, an accurate measure, a square and some caution and patience . . . but they require a level of DIY comfort that is a step above deciphering the Ikea instruction sheet. If you are not a confident DIY'er then I'd recommend you engage some experienced assistance for assembly and installation.
And really important also: Recognise that you would be ordering a custom product from a supplier far away, with some language, culture and time zone differences. I have always believed that as a customer, "you usually get the service you deserve", that you are generally treated as you treat the other person. Because of the customisation, the one-time nature of the purchase, the great distances involved, and the need to communicate via email. it's especially important to realise that buying direct from China requires clear communication; politeness, patience, friendliness and kindness on your part; and goodwill. Provide all of those, and I am confident that VOVO will give you the same in return.

But some people aren't like that - some are very demanding, think it's someone else's job to figure them out and satisfy them, and can be very rude when things don't seem like they are going properly. For those people, I strongly recommend against buying direct from China. There are too many ways for things to get confused, and without mutual goodwill (and good humour) I perceive it would be easy for unhappiness on both sides to result.

Okay, the pictures, already! Here are some snapshots from today. I'll post some better ones when the counter and backsplash are in (and the sink doors are on), to show the cabinets off to the best effect.

In conclusion: I hope this is in some ways helpful to other people. I would have loved to have had this sort of information before I started. I do think that VOVO is worth your consideration, if you can relate to the advantages and considerations that I flagged. If you have any questions, please just post 'em. In any event, I'll post again once the room feels more finished.
tiggsy
9 years ago
Mark, I enjoyed following along on your journey. Thanks for the information and observations. Is it possible for you to take any pictures of the plywood insides of the cabinets?
Mark Nesbitt
Original Author
9 years ago
Happy to share what I can. The plywood is covered on all sides by white melamine, so the interiors look plain white. I can take a picture if you want (although the cabinets are full of stuff now!). If you zoom in on the sink cabinet in one of the top two photos of my previous post, you can see what the cabinet interiors look like.

Here's a picture of the plywood carcass sawed edge (from where I had to notch out a back corner of one of the pantry cabinets), showing what the plywood layers look like. You can see the white layer on each side.
aulline
9 years ago
Thank you very much for sharing your experience. Your kitchen is looking sharp. Once again, thanks!
Mark Nesbitt thanked aulline
Mark Nesbitt
Original Author
9 years ago
Maybe the final post

. . . unless folks have any final questions.

Update: As I had written on August 19, we had a problem with the sink doors as shipped, and Vovo had been very responsive. They remade the doors last week, and they were shipped to us by courier this week. I unpacked them after work Friday, and found (again) that Vovo had packed things exceptionally well for shipment (double boxed and foam padded inside), and the doors made the trip with no damage of any kind. Yesterday we mounted the hinges and handles and mounted them, and did some other finishing bits.

So today I am sharing the "old" versus the "new" pictures. As noted at the beginning of this thread, the kitchen was small, functional but worn out. You'll see that we made very few changes in layout (and in my opinion, we could make very few changes without a major rethink of the whole floor, given two doorways and a large window). The work triangle was always fine.

The design changes we wanted included:
- Replacement of the the old cabinetry which was at end of life, with some loose hinges and marked-up interiors and exteriors.
- An update of the very 70's look. We wanted a very clean, stark even, European style.
- Staying within a tight budget. We knew that we could have spent five times as much as we did on the project, but we doubted our net happiness would have increased if we had. There are lots of other things to do with that money.
- A cleaner look and better space utilization for the kitchen pantry cabinets.
- A monochromatic palette, to make this small kitchen look less busy.
- Replacement of the floor (22-year-old Armstrong vinyl tiles) with something that was richer, more robust, more modern and cleaner.
- Higher quality cabinetry, well put together. (We weren't clear exactly what our choices were when we started, but we were able to achieve solid plywood cabinetry and the best quality hardware we could identify.)
- Better designs for the corner cabinets. The base cabinet was large, and had a double door, but inside there was just an open cabinet with one partial "mezzanine"-level shelf. Stuff got lost in the back and it was difficult to access what was back there. The wall cabinet was worse - it had a blind corner that made a third of the space was impossible to use, and tended to trap things. When we demolished the kitchen, we found decade-old foodstuffs buried back there.
- Better lighting. The old ceiling light was a fixture with two spot lights that were useless, because when you worked at the counter, your body shielded the workspace from the light. There were two very useful pot lights over the sink, behind a valance that bridged the wall cabinets, a feature we wanted to keep. We had no undercabinet lighting.
- A higher-performance countertop. The old counter was a white laminate, which had actually stood up fairly well, all things considered. But we wanted a stone or quartz countertop (and ended up choosing a Caesarstone counter in Clamshell). Along with that, we wanted a tile backsplash, rather than the lipped back of the laminate counter and a painted wall.
- A better sink. The old kitchen had a double bowl top mount stainless sink. We wanted a larger, deeper single-bowl undermount sink. We chose a Kraus sink that had the quality features we sought (thick steel, sound padding, etc.), and we matched that with a Kraus solid-stainless pull-out faucet. We bought the matching Kraus colander, which can sit within one side of the sink, and provide the drainage for vegetables or just-washed dishes that we used the old second bowl for. We wanted more functionality (a sink that could hold larger items) and more counter space. Mission accomplished.
- Some better appliances. Bucking pretty much every piece of kitchen-design advice that we saw, we wanted to have white appliances rather than stainless steel. We wanted the blend-in monochromatic look, and we wanted easy-clean exteriors (no fingerprint concerns), particularly with our four grandchildren in mind. This was not easy to do! We wanted the look of a slide-in range - and initially we sought an induction range, but the choices out there for a white slide-in induction range are almost non-existent. Viking (Brigade-branded in Canada) makes one, but the cost is ridiculous (given our modest budget) and worse, they appear to be both very unreliable and very expensive to fix. Bertazzoni is a similar competitor. All of the reasonably-priced and reliable brands only offer slide-in induction ranges in stainless. We we went with a smooth-top Whirlpool that has full convection and a huge oven; it works very well. We were looking for a white dishwasher that would be (a) quiet, (b) clean with top-mounted/hidden controls, and (c) possessed of a third rack for cutlery. We found what we wanted in a Blomberg dishwasher that was well reviewed in Consumer Reports, and it's a delight. We had just replaced our Panasonic over-the-range microwave, and were happy with it, and our three-door LG fridge was maybe 18 months old, and was perfect. So within the scope of the project, we replaced the range and dishwasher, and were able to find both of them on sale, at a deep discount, which helped our budget.
So that's what we were after. This thread is all about the cabinets, and our venture into unknown waters in ordering custom cabinetry direct from a Chinese manufacturer . . . but you can see that the cabinets were just part of what we were changing (albeit the most important part).

We think we accomplished all of our goals for this fairly modest kitchen-renewal project, and are super pleased with the room now. And to reiterate what I wrote in August, we have been very happy with Vovo at every step in the process (the before-purchase dialog, the value proposition, the manufacturing and shipping process, the completeness and quality of what was delivered, and the very quick and supportive resolution of an issue), and that has been a very nice centrepiece to this project.

On to the before-and-after photos

The kitchen is a small room, maybe 10x11, with most of the functions on two walls, a north wall with the window (and sink and dishwasher) and a west wall (with the fridge, stove and OTR microwave).

Here's the north wall, before:

And here's the same wall, after:

Here is the west wall, before:

And here is the same wall, after:

And finally, in the southeast corner of the room, nestled between two doorways (one to the entry hall, the other to the dining room) is a pantry cupboard.

Here's the before picture:

And here is the after:

In conclusion, this has been a happy story for us. We achieved our objectives while sticking to a tight budget. I really hope that others find something useful and helpful in our experience, and that others are able to discover in Vovo what we did. (BTW, they produce all kinds of styles of cabinetry - including very traditional looks, all kinds of wood cabinets, and very creative modern styles. I appreciate that our taste and priorities are not 'usual' - Vovo worked with us to deliver what we wanted, not what they wanted to give us. Also, I should say that, while we had a budget, Vovo could have delivered even more economical solutions - our decision to choose plywood over fibreboard and Blum over generic hardware each added to our cost significantly.)
User
9 years ago
Congratulations! Hope you love cooking in your new and improved kitchen. Looks very nice! Thank you for sharing your journey!
Mark Nesbitt thanked User
Chessie
9 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
By "carcass" do you mean cabinet box? I think of a dead animal every time I read that.
Mark Nesbitt
Original Author
9 years ago
[smiling] Chess, that's a bit of jargon I picked up in this project, in dialog with the manufacturer. According to this it's a cabinetry term. I didn't use to use the word this way either.
dan1888
9 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Since this is an instructive set of postings on a new product line I'd like more pictures to help evaluate the cabs. Closeups of door edges/corners/backs/drawers inside and cabinet face edging and any assembly closeups you may have taken. It seems yours can serve as a good example of quality levels if you can show more stuff up close to compare.

On your range I would get the door facia and bottom trim enameled in white in order to not have a Ceran cooktop. Kinda like what you had to do extra for the cabs.
Mark Nesbitt thanked dan1888
Mark Nesbitt
Original Author
9 years ago
Hi Dan1888 & any others with similar questions -

I'm happy to share pictures/description as you'd like (I'm at work now, so it would take a day or two to respond) - the more precise you can be about your questions, the better I can address your concerns.

I would make these verbal observations about quality:
- The cabs shipped knocked down, and their assembly would be comparable to an Ikea kitchen ( I have built three sets of Ikea cabs in my time), with the same sort of pin-and-cam plus dowel joinery. I found the resulting rigidity to be comparable to Ikea boxes (i.e., good), with the positive exception that the cabinet backs were plywood, thicker, and captured in grooves/slots in the sides and top/bottom, not tacked on to the back. Note also that I had the choice of full-thickness plywood backs had I wanted (which would have suited different wall mounting). The rigidity of these or Ikea cabs are further improved with glue - that's the assembler's decision.
- The finish was flawless (but in my experience, the finish on Ikea cabinetry is also flawless).
- Every dimension was precise (but so I perceive would Ikea be). But of course, these cabs were custom-dimensioned, so there would be more opportunity for possible errors. There were none.
- The cabs I ordered were 9-ply E1-rated waterproof plywood, not the fibreboard that Ikea and many others use. Everyone has their own opinion about what that is worth, in quality terms. Judge for yourself what you want. In an earlier post I shared an image of the sawed-through cabinet side - I perceive the plywood was very good quality: dense, even, and without VOC off-gassing.
- The drawers were all Blum Tandembox Plus drawers and glides, with the Blum-supplied drawer sides mated with Vovo-supplied wood bottoms, backs and drawer fronts. People have their own preferences for a metal Blum-system drawer versus a dovetailed all-wood drawer. I ordered my preference, and the drawer quality is mostly a product of the Blum design.
- The hinge hardware was all Blum, but again that's a personal decision of the buyer, and whether there is a quality benefit greater than the added cost.
- The leg design is comparable to Ikea - solidly mounted bases with adjustable plastic legs. As I noted in an earlier post, the supplied toe kick was something I was unsure about. I was used to cabinet-matching wood kicks, and I was not sure how these plastic ribbed kicks would look. Having made the kitchen, I would very happily order the same thing again - these kicks are scuff-resistant, easy to clean, super-easy to install, and look great. Both my wife and I quite like them, for different reasons.
Some closeups of "door edges/corners/backs/drawers inside and cabinet face edging" to follow.

[Also, your suggestion of getting the stove door fascia and bottom trim enamelled was a creative one, and not something I had considered. Thank you. I wonder how easy it would be to remove the front-facing metal on a typical range, to get it painted and the finish baked on? Do other folks have any experience doing this? I'd be interested, and if practical, it might be the upgrade path for us, rather than waiting for white appliances to come back into fashion enough for a mainstream manufacturer to produce what we want.]
Mark Nesbitt
Original Author
9 years ago
Here are some pictures of the door edges and cabinet insides, as requested.

if you have other questions, or clarifications, please just ask.
barncatz
9 years ago
Hi Mark, congratulations; it looks great. I love the cabinet finish, and the way the counter looks with it, and I think the new pantry looks really sharp.

This has been such an interesting and informative read, I'm so glad that you're pleased with the quality and that the new kitchen turned out so well!
Mark Nesbitt thanked barncatz
dan1888
9 years ago
Thank you. That looks good.
Mark Nesbitt thanked dan1888
Milly Rey
9 years ago
You should be able to request holes drilled too.
Mark Nesbitt
Original Author
9 years ago
Milly, probably one could! See my note about not thinking through all the details. I had expectations that I didn't communicate - my bad. But it all worked out fine.
Nephele Sellountos Delis
8 years ago
Thank you so much for posting this! I’m looking for a modern vanity that isn’t going to break the bank abd found vovo designs. I actually googled it find reviews because we’ve never ordered anything in this manner. I just figured to skip the middle man abd ho straight to the source since most of the vanity companies produce their items in China how is the kitchen holding up? Satisfied with the quality?
Mark Nesbitt
Original Author
8 years ago
Well, it still looks and feels like new, but you'd expect that (wouldn't you?). Anyway, no glitches have been revealed, everything is perfect, and my wife and I are still feeling delighted with the end product and the value. We have had lots of compliments.

I was staring at our master bathroom last week and thinking we might plan its renovation using Vovo cabinetry . . .
Annie O
8 years ago
Hi Mark, Thank you so much for sharing your experience with us. I wanted to ask you this: was countertop included in your order from vovo and if yes, how did you manage to install it because it is so heavy. Again, thank you for your valuable input.
Mark Nesbitt
Original Author
8 years ago
Hi, no I did not order the countertop from Vovo. I think a kitchen counter would be difficult to ship without risk of breakage, and it's much easier to get a precise fit if the cabinets are installed first. We had a local company measure, cut and install the countertop.

If I was ordering a bathroom vanity I'd be interested in getting the top too from Vovo.

Thanks for your interest, and good luck with your project!
Tali Wolder
8 years ago
Mark, your post inspired me to order cabinets from Volvo Kitchens. I am remodeling the entire condo. All new kitchen, bathrooms vanities and closets. In addition, sinks, faucets and quartz counter tops are also being supplied by Volvo. My experience with Sara at Vovo has been the same wonderful interaction as yours was. The company is efficient, very precise and more helpful than you can imagine especially considering the many changes I made during the process requiring new CAD drawings each time. I will have a container so Volvo will assemble some of my cabinets. I addition, Sara offered to add other items to the container that suppliers in China shipped direct to her. I have ordered a drawer fridge for beverages for my kitchen at less than half the cost for a similar item here in the US, toilets, motorized roller blinds and a new front door.
My order will only ship in June and I am looking forward to receiving everything. I’ll post the finished rooms in 2-3 months.
Mark Nesbitt
Original Author
8 years ago
That's exciting! Glad to hear you are experiencing the same kind of service as I did. I hope you post some pictures here when the project is done.
zneret
8 years ago
A bit late to this conversation but I redid the main and basement suite kitchen and bath using Chinese-made cabinets.

The main draw for me was plywood construction instead of MDF. The one thing you notice when you carry them is how much lighter they are than MDF. Construction seemed good with cam locking when you put them together. The main drawback to the ones I got is that a face frame is used instead of faceless Euro design which makes openings smaller, and you can get things jammed in drawers.

Hinge and drawer hardware depended on how much you want to pay. German-made stuff was available as an option. We just got basic

Price, installed, was a lot lot less than what HD wanted to resurface the cabinets.

We were lucky to have a dealer in our part of the world (Canada) though the distributor was in the S.F. area.
PRO
VOVO Kitchen l Design
8 years ago
Hi Mark...Thank you very much for sharing the experience buying from us, so nowadays more and more customers start to buy from us, like Tali, like Carlos...

Thanks again!

Hi there, I can be got in touch with as below:

Please send your inquiry to us freely, I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

Welcome to visit us in anytime!

Best regards
Sara Zhao / Sales Manager
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kitchen l Wardrobe l Vanity
VOVO Building Material Co., Ltd
E: sales02@vovokitchen.com
WeChat: sarazkd
WhatsApp: 0086 134 8082 8672
http://vovokitchen.en.alibaba.com
One-stop Cabinetry Supply
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mark Nesbitt thanked VOVO Kitchen l Design
Janice Scott
7 years ago
Hi, I am in Edmonton, Alberta and have seen Vovo Kitchens on Aliexpress. I am interested! Zeneret, you mentioned a dealer in Canada. Who/where/how do I connect with them? Or is it better to go directly through Aliexpress? I am a bit nervous of figuring out how to get the shipment from Vancouver to Edmonton.... Never done that before! :) But, it seems like it's worth the savings.
Mark Nesbitt
Original Author
7 years ago
Hi Janice. There are lots of Chinese-made cabinets for sale at retail (we looked at some, and my early posts referred to some we saw), but I don't believe that Vovo custom cabinets are available locally - you would need to deal directly with them in China. Good luck, and let us know how you get along.
wacokid
7 years ago
Mark, From that original post of yours and those posters ripping you I'm glad you kept posting. The one guy actually calling you cheap, and the other "infamous" poster was even worse. Looks like it really paid off and inspired others, good job.
Mark Nesbitt thanked wacokid
vaidyasr9
7 years ago
Hello, I had a very positive experience working with Sara from VOVO. We are planning to have our entire house, cabinets (including kitchen) done through them. But before I ordered everything I wanted to make sure that I like the quality and shipment reaches me as expected, so I ordered 1 cabinet (about $2000) from them. And I am already struggling with getting the shipment through customs with having to find an agent and then a broker. The current estimate I have received from the agent to get the shipment from New York to New Jersey along with customs and all the fees is 70% of the cost of the cabinet, which is extremely high. Even if I pick it up from the port, as per the agents estimate its 50% of the cabinet. Does any one here have any experiences to share with regards to getting a shipment from China to US?
PRO
VOVO Kitchen l Design
7 years ago
Hi dear, I'm sorry for the U.S. local charges. Less container loading(LCL) is actually higher than full container loading(FCL). That's why I suggested you order and ship all cabinets together in a full container. While I understand you'd like to test the quality for ordering 1 cabinet first, so I had to agree with you and ship 1 cabinet first. For the rest cabinets, the right choice is to ship by a full container. I'm now having shipping forwarder check a full container shipping cost to NEW YORK, will get back to you asap! Have a nice day! Sara
PRO
VOVO Kitchen l Design
7 years ago
Hi Tali, I believe you're a nice person, so am I. We made many nice cases, but after your case, we know we're not perfect, but our heart of supplying good after service is keeping going. So any help you need, please be free to let me know. We thanks for your feedback and for sure we'll do better in future. We started 3D rendering service, so before order, customers can "see" their cabinet, to "see" is better than to imagine.
Caroline
5 years ago
Mark took responsibility for his minor mistakes and had a good experience. He ended up feeling good and believing he had made a good decision. He had done a lot of research before deciding to work with VOVO. He is pleased with his new kitchen, in the way a balanced individual is pleased. Notably, he didn't say it was the best business decision he had ever made in his life. He would have sounded overly-excitable and discredited himself if he had said that.

Why did Mark have a good experience whereas a client who ordered from VOVO after learning of his success here on this page did not? There are many possibilities. He didn't blame VIVO for things that weren't their fault. He took control of his installation and was able to make adjustments as needed when the unexpected occurred. He maintained a positive relationship with VOVO from start to finish. I believe that I can have a good experience with the company, similar to Mark's.
nepheled
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago
@User🤣🤣🤣
Silent Dogood
4 years ago
Hi Mark, how are your cabinets holding up 4 years after your initial order?

Also, for those of you who ordered from VOVO, did you receive a design for what your cabinets would look like before paying the deposit? Or did you pay the deposit first before any design work was done?
Mark Nesbitt
Original Author
4 years ago
Hi Silent Dogwood - I just saw your post. Four-plus years after completion, the kitchen cabinetry looks like new. No marks, no visible wear, nothing loose. 100% happy. Good luck with your project,
C W
3 years ago
@VOVO Kitchen l Design, could you please tell us how much @Mark Nesbitt's kitchen would have cost in today's US dollars with it being 5 years ago? Thank you!
PRO
VOVO Kitchen l Design
3 years ago
@C W Thanks for asking. The price now is different from 5 years ago. Can you please send your kitchen layout to us? so we can check exact price for you quickly. My name is Sara.

E: sales02@vovokitchen.com

T: 0086 760 8832 2286

M: 0086 134 8082 8672 whats app

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C W
3 years ago
last modified: 3 years ago
Hi Sara! To clarify, I was hoping you could tell us, the audience, what Mark's kitchen would have cost today...since you already have his measurements. I have read this thread entirely and have researched your company's portfolio and I'm impressed so far. I have measurements and various quotes in my beginning stages. I may contact you to obtain quotes for my kitchen but first I would like to know the price difference in Mark's kitchen today vs. the $1989 he paid 5 years ago. (Just his cabinets, not hardware or shipping/insurance.) Thank you!
PRO
VOVO Kitchen l Design
3 years ago
@C W Yes, glad to check for you. It's USD2680 just for cabinets. Not including BLUM hardware, sink&tap and shipping.
Chrsiti E
3 years ago
Sara can we just get a few cabinets or do we have to buy sets ?
D
2 years ago
Another option instead off all the headache, is to buy the cabinets stock cabinets you like, except the the odd size and just pay to have that one made custom, much easier!