DDP shipping from China to Amazon FBA in Germany: what the quote has to include

A seller books DDP to Germany, receives a price that includes duty, and treats the freight as solved. Then the trailer reaches the fulfilment centre without an appointment, or a pallet is turned away because the carton labels do not match the shipment in the seller's account. The cargo waits outside while storage charges start, and the seller learns that the last mile into Amazon was never part of the deal.

The cause sits at the handover, where the forwarder's job ends and Amazon's receiving rules take over. Those rules are stricter than at an ordinary warehouse, and a quote that reads DDP does not always reach as far as the loading dock.

What DDP looks like when the address is a fulfilment centre

Delivered Duty Paid means the forwarder stays responsible for the cargo until it reaches the buyer's address, with import clearance, duties and taxes already paid. On a normal delivery, arriving at the address ends the obligation.

A fulfilment centre receives goods through its own process. The delivery needs a shipment that already exists in your seller account, an appointment made against that shipment, and labels that match it rather than whatever is printed on the carton in front of the receiver. A forwarder can book the appointment for you. It cannot create the shipment in your account, and it cannot supply a code you have not generated.

This is why two sellers can buy what sounds like the same service and get different outcomes. The freight is identical. The paperwork and the appointment belong to whoever holds the seller account.

The leg most DDP quotes leave out

A quotation can say DDP to Germany and still stop at a German address of your choosing, leaving the centre to you. Before comparing prices, check that the scope covers each of these:

• Pickup at your supplier, wherever in China the goods are made
• Receipt, checking, labelling and consolidation at the origin warehouse
• Export clearance at the Chinese port or airport
• Ocean or air freight to the EU
• EU import clearance, with duty and tax paid by the forwarder
• Trucking from the port or airport to the fulfilment centre
• The appointment booking at the centre, and the unloading that goes with it

The last two items are where an invoice grows after arrival. One quote includes the appointment and the unloading; another stops at a German postcode and lets you arrange the rest. Both call themselves DDP. Ask which item is excluded, then compare the totals.

Details that decide whether a pallet is accepted

Centres refuse deliveries for reasons that never show up on a freight quotation:

• The shipment in your seller account has to exist before the cargo lands, and the centre code printed on the cartons has to be the one on the appointment. A forwarder working from last month's code will drive to the wrong building.
• Labels have to be readable on the outside of the carton without opening it. Barcodes on both the outer carton and the inner retail unit are the detail sellers get caught on. One seller in an e-commerce forum put it as "make sure your manufacturer has barcodes on outer and inner cartons".
• The weights and dimensions in your shipment plan should come from the forwarder's measurement, not the supplier's estimate. When the two disagree, the plan gets rebuilt while the cargo is already at sea.
• Palletised cargo needs pallet labels and a stack a truck can take without restacking. Cartons arriving loose go down a different receiving line.
• One appointment covers one delivery point. Stock split across two centres means two trucking legs and a higher price.

Almost all of this happens before the container is sealed, and the seller owns nearly every item on the list, because only the seller holds the account. That is also why a freight quote cannot protect you from a mistake made in the shipment plan.

Sellers buying from three or four factories run into a related problem: three sets of cartons, three label jobs and one shipment plan. Consolidating the goods at an origin warehouse lets them be checked, labelled and packed into a single shipment before they leave China, so one appointment covers all of it. Left separate, each factory's cargo needs its own booking into the centre, and each one can be delayed on its own.

Sea or air for a German restock

The ranges we publish for the European Union are 28 to 40 days by sea and 10 to 15 days by air. Those cover the sailing or the flight and port handling; customs clearance and the inland run to the centre come on top of them.

That gives a rule you can plan around. If stock has to be on sale within six weeks, sea freight from China will not carry the plan, because the published sea range already reaches 40 days before the German inland leg. Air freight fits inside that window. For cargo that cannot wait at all, our express air option is quoted at 3 to 5 days.

Air is priced on chargeable weight, so bulky cartons that weigh little end up paying for space. Dense cargo such as tools, hardware or tightly packed ceramics travels well by air at the volumes a launch needs. Light bulky goods usually cost more by air than the margin can absorb, which pushes the decision back to sea and a later launch date.

A common split for a first German launch is an air shipment for the first weeks of sales and a sea shipment for the volume behind it. The air covers the gap while the container is still on the water, and the sea freight sets the cost of everything that follows.

Rail is the third option, positioned between the two on both cost and time. China-Europe Railway Express services run door to door into Europe, which suits cargo that moves too slowly by sea for a launch but is too heavy to pay air rates on. It works best for planned replenishment rather than for a date you cannot move.

Questions to settle before you book

Get the answers in writing, because they are what makes the next quote comparable:

• Is the appointment included, and who books it?
• Are duty and tax inside the price, and at which declared value?
• Which centre code goes on the cartons, and who prints the labels?
• If the centre rejects the delivery, who pays the return, the storage and the second appointment?
• If the sailing is rolled to a later vessel, does the German inland booking move with it?
• Is cargo insurance arranged at booking, and does it cover the full declared value?

A forwarder who answers these on paper is easier to hold to the price later than one who explains them on a call and never sends an email.

How we handle FBA cargo from China

Yueyang International Logistics has shipped cargo out of China since 2010, from our office in Yiwu. On an FBA shipment we handle the booking, export clearance, freight, EU import clearance, duty and tax, the appointment, and delivery into the fulfilment centre.

Cargo arrives at our Yiwu warehouse, where we receive it, check it, label and repack it, and consolidate orders from several suppliers into one shipment so the goods travel under one set of documents. Sea freight leaves from Ningbo, Shanghai, Shenzhen and other major Chinese ports. Air freight and express run from the main Chinese airports. Rail goes to Europe and Central Asia on the China-Europe Railway Express. Cargo insurance can be arranged at booking against the declared value.

To price an FBA shipment we need the carton count, dimensions and total weight, the supplier address, the centre code, and the date the stock has to be on sale. Send those to [email protected] or call +86 152 6732 4109, and we will quote the door-to-centre leg with the charges listed one by one.