2026-01-20 · 7 min
The first aluminum pergola order: what importers actually decide
A practical path from the first email to a frozen drawing. Price is rarely the step that delays a pergola order.
Importers rarely lose a season because the factory price was a few dollars high. They lose it because the opening size, the louver motor, and the packing were still open when the production slot passed.
This is the path most first-time pergola buyers walk. It is not a story about one named customer. It is the sequence we see when a distributor, a garden-center chain, or a project contractor buys aluminum pergolas for the first time.
Start with the opening, not the hero photo
Catalog photos show a finished bay. Your order is a set of openings. Write the span, the projection, and the height under the beam before you ask for a unit price. A 3×4 m bay and a 4×6 m bay are different frames, different beam sections, and different packing.
If the site is a row of restaurant terraces, say so. Repeating bays share posts. A single garden bay does not.
What belongs in the first email
Send four things, even if the drawing is still rough:
- A plan or a marked photo with width, projection, and height
- Roof type: motorized louver or fixed
- Color, as a RAL powder-coat code if you have one
- Destination country and whether the goods ship knocked down
The alloy we build with is 6063-T5. Surface finish is powder coating, or PVDF when the site is coastal and you ask for it. OEM marking on the beam or the carton is a separate line, not a surprise at the end.
A sample decides the motor and the color
Buyers often treat a sample as a showroom piece. Use it to confirm the louver direction, the motor side, and the color under your own light. Change those after the batch is coated and you are paying for a second run.
Pavilion models listed on our ICR verification are checked against EN 1090. Ask which model numbers are on that certificate before you write the standard into a tender. Not every bay size is the same listing.
Freeze the drawing, then book the slot
When the drawing is signed, the production conversation gets short: material cut list, coating batch, and export packing. Cartons are marked for the bay, not for “pergola, assorted.”