Wooden puzzle wholesale: MOQ, price bands and what freight does to your unit cost

Wholesale conversations usually start with a price and end with a carton. The FOB number is the easy part to compare between suppliers; the number that decides whether a line works is the landed cost per unit, and that depends on carton volume, weight and how the order fills a container.

This guide sets out how we price, where the MOQ thresholds come from, and how to use carton data before you commit.

How the price is built

Four things drive the FOB price of a wooden puzzle: the board, the cut, the decoration and the packing. Labour is embedded in the cut and the assembly, and testing is amortised across the order.

Board is the least negotiable. Thickness and species follow the design, and shaving the board is the fastest way to make a puzzle that warps or delaminates in transit.

Cut is where volume shows up. Laser needs no tooling and suits small runs; die cutting needs a die and suits long runs. The same design can price differently depending on the quantity you ask for.

Decoration is where colour count matters. Each printed colour is a pass, and each painted area is labour or a mask. A design with six colours costs more than a design with three at the same piece count.

Packing is often underweighted. A custom box with a printed sleeve and an insert can add more to the unit cost than the wood does, and it also changes the carton, which changes freight.

Price bands by type and piece count

Indicative FOB bands, in US dollars, on Ningbo or Shanghai terms. These are planning figures for ordinary board, standard packaging and a mid-size order; a quotation for your specification will confirm the number.

Type	Typical piece count	Indicative FOB (US$)	Typical MOQ
Peg or knob board	4 to 9	0.5 to 1.5	16
Chunky puzzle	4 to 12	1.5 to 3.0	16
Tray jigsaw	6 to 24	1.0 to 2.5	16
Boxed jigsaw, child	24 to 100	1.0 to 3.5	16
Boxed jigsaw, large child	150 to 300	2.5 to 5.0	16
Alphabet or number board	10 to 26	2.0 to 4.0	16
Shape sorter	6 to 12	1.5 to 3.5	16
Tangram set with cards	7 plus cards	1.0 to 2.5	16
Matching or memory set	8 to 20 pairs	0.5 to 1.5	16
3D or brain teaser	1 to 12	1.5 to 4.0	16
Gift set or boxed multi	varies	10.0 to 20.0	100
Adult jigsaw	500	10.0 to 20.0	100
Adult jigsaw	1000	15.0 to 30.0	100
Adult jigsaw	2000	25.0 to 60.0	100

Two structural notes. Most of our puzzles sit inside a US$0.5 to 5 band, and the gift and adult sets sit in a US$10 to 60 band, which is why the table jumps rather than climbs smoothly. And the piece count inside a type moves the price less than the packaging does: a 24-piece and a 48-piece jigsaw in the same box differ by less than either differs from a version with a custom printed box.

How the MOQ works

Our minimum is from 10 pieces per SKU, and the typical MOQ is 16. That is not an arbitrary number; it comes from sheet yield and setup. A laser cut design can start at 10 because there is no tooling to amortise. Sixteen covers a standard sheet layout cleanly, which is why most orders land there.

Custom colour or custom box moves the threshold to 100 to 300 pieces, depending on what is being changed. A printed box needs a print run. A custom paint colour needs a batch of paint and a cleaning cycle on the line. A new die needs enough volume to justify the tool.

Below these thresholds we can still help, but it is usually by supplying a stock design and a stock box rather than a custom one. For an Amazon seller testing a listing, that is often the right first order; the customisation can follow once the design has proven itself.

Mixed SKUs are welcome. An order of 16 pieces across ten SKUs is more useful to us than one SKU at 160 pieces, because it tells us which designs to carry forward.

Carton data and freight per unit

Freight per unit is carton volume divided by units per carton, multiplied by the freight rate. Two puzzles can share an FOB price and have very different landed costs.

Worked through in plain terms: if a carton holds 60 units and occupies a certain number of cubic metres, the freight per unit is that volume times the rate, divided by 60. Change the box and the units per carton fall; change the piece count and the carton weight rises. Both move the number, and neither shows up in an FOB comparison.

Ask every supplier for four figures per SKU: units per carton, carton dimensions, gross weight and carton count per pallet. Without all four you cannot compare two quotes honestly, and the cheapest FOB frequently turns out to be the most expensive landed.

Weight matters most for adult puzzles. A carton of 1000-piece jigsaws is heavy enough that handling limits, not volume, set the pallet pattern.

Filling a mixed container

If you are shipping a full container, the mix matters as much as the total.

Aim for a carton footprint that stacks consistently across SKUs. Mixed carton sizes waste height in a container and cost you space that no supplier will refund.

Plan the heavy items at the bottom of the load and the light, bulky items where they fit. Adult puzzles are dense; chunky puzzles and floor puzzles are light but take volume. The two balance each other reasonably well in a mixed load.

Use a 20ft container as a planning figure of roughly 28 cubic metres of usable space, and a 40ft high cube as roughly 68. Treat those as rules of thumb for early planning; the exact figure depends on palletisation and how the cartons nest.

For smaller volumes, LCL is workable but adds handling and consolidates with other cargo. Many of our buyers start LCL, then move to a full container once two or three SKUs prove themselves.

Sourcing this product from us

We quote FOB Ningbo or Shanghai, with EXW and CIF on request, and we send carton dimensions, units per carton and gross weight with the quotation rather than after the order.

Minimum order is from 10 pieces per SKU, typical MOQ 16, custom colour or box 100 to 300 pieces. Samples take 3 to 7 working days; production runs about 15 to 35 days after sample approval. EN71, ASTM F963 and CPSIA reports are supplied per model with the quotation, with CE marking where applicable.

Send us the types and piece counts you are considering and we will return indicative pricing plus the carton data you need to model landed cost. Write to bf@ycyy.cn or message WhatsApp on +86 159 8884 2458.