Hiring a freight forwarder for your first import from China

Most first orders from China stall on the same question. The supplier finishes production, sends photos of the cartons, and asks which forwarder is collecting. If you have never arranged freight before, that email is where the work starts, and it is often where the order sits while the buyer works out what to ask.

A forwarder books the space, prepares and files the documents, clears the cargo through export and import, and arranges delivery to the address you give. On a first shipment the decisions that matter are narrow: what the quote covers, who is named as the importer, how much cargo justifies a container, and what you want in writing before you pay anything.

What the forwarder takes over

On a door-to-door shipment under DDP terms the forwarder handles the whole chain. In our service that means pickup at your supplier, export clearance at the Chinese port or airport, the freight itself, import clearance, the duty and tax owed at destination, and delivery to your address. The quote is one figure for the journey, and the charges behind it should still be listed separately so you can see what each part costs.

Buying on FOB terms changes where the forwarder's work begins. Export clearance is usually the supplier's, freight and destination clearance are yours, and you pay the duty directly. Both arrangements are normal. What causes trouble is assuming you were quoted one when the other is on the paper.

Plenty of first orders come from more than one supplier. A forwarder with a warehouse in China can receive the cartons, check them against the packing list, label them and load one shipment instead of three. Our consolidation work happens in Yiwu, where our office is, before the cargo moves to Ningbo, Shanghai or Shenzhen.

The brief that gets a quote back

The complaint about silence turns up on freight forums constantly: emails sent to several forwarders, replies from none. Replies tend to arrive when the brief can actually be priced. A message that says the goods are ready and asks for a rate to the UK forces the forwarder to send a questionnaire back, and that email lands behind the briefs that are complete.

Send these details in the first message:

Carton count, with the length, width and height of one carton
Total gross weight
Total volume in cubic metres, or enough dimensions to work it out
The supplier's address, and whether they can deliver to a warehouse
Your delivery address, including the postcode
What the goods are, including the material, and anything awkward such as batteries, liquids or glass
The date the stock has to be with you

Weight and volume drive the price more than any other line in that list. A quote that arrives without either figure is an estimate, and it will move once the cargo is measured at the warehouse. If a forwarder prices your shipment without asking for weight or volume, ask what the number is based on.

Who is named as the importer

Every import has an importer of record: the party legally responsible for the entry, the duty and the compliance of the goods. Which party that is depends on the terms you bought on, and it is worth knowing before the cargo sails.

Under DDP the forwarder clears the goods and pays the duty, and you collect at your door. That is convenient on a first order, and it is also why some buyers stay wary of it. If the entry is declared under the forwarder's own importer number, the import history builds with them and not with you. Ask which entity will be named on the customs entry. A forwarder who answers that plainly is telling you something useful about how they work.

Under FOB, the container reaches the terminal days before the vessel does, and the risk point sits at loading on board. A container damaged at the terminal then falls into a gap where the supplier points to the handover and your insurer points to the loading, and the claim waits. Forwarders who handle containerised cargo raise this often. One practical fix is to ask the supplier for FCA at the named terminal on the proforma, which moves the risk point to the handover, and to let the forwarder declare FOB-equivalent values if the supplier's export system insists on FOB terms.

How much cargo before a container makes sense

LCL means your cargo shares a container. You pay for the cubic metres you occupy or the tonnes you weigh, whichever is larger, plus handling at both ends. FCL means you book the whole box and pay for it whether or not it is full.

Our rule of thumb for the routes we run: below roughly 13 cubic metres, LCL is usually cheaper. Above roughly 20 cubic metres, FCL usually is. Between the two, ask for both numbers on the same brief, because the answer turns on the destination and on how dense the cargo is.

Density moves that line. Glassware and steel fittings reach weight limits long before they fill space, and LCL charges on weight as well as volume. Two pallets of glass food containers at about 1.5 metres high take up somewhere near 3 to 4 cubic metres, far below the crossover, and the freight will be priced on the tonnes. That shipment goes LCL.

For scale, a 20ft container holds about 28 cubic metres of usable space, a 40ft about 58, and a 40ft high cube about 68. Carton shapes and pallet heights leave gaps that nothing fills, so treat those as ceilings.

Documents and dates

The forwarder will ask for a packing list and a commercial invoice, and the two have to agree. Weights that differ between documents are one of the ordinary reasons a container is held for examination. The invoice needs a description that matches what is inside, and an HS code you and the supplier have both agreed.

Air cargo carries extra rules. Batteries, liquids and magnets need a declaration before booking, and some of them cannot fly on a standard service at all. For destinations in the EU the importer needs an EORI number before the entry can be filed. These details belong to the supplier as much as to the forwarder, and they are easier to collect while production is still running than after the cargo reaches the airport.

These are the transit times we publish for our routes, counting from departure to arrival:

United States: 25 to 35 days by sea, 7 to 10 days by air
Canada: 28 to 38 days by sea, 10 to 15 days by air
United Kingdom: 30 to 35 days by sea, 10 to 15 days by air
European Union: 28 to 40 days by sea, 10 to 15 days by air
Australia: 15 to 25 days by sea, 10 to 15 days by air
South Africa: 22 to 30 days by sea, 12 to 18 days by air
Japan: 7 to 10 days by sea, 5 to 7 days by air
UAE and the Middle East: 18 to 25 days by sea, 8 to 15 days by air

Plan backwards from the date the stock has to sit in your warehouse, not from the sailing date. Clearance, duty payment and inland trucking add time on top of the ocean leg, and a week of margin costs less than converting part of a first order to air freight after the goods are already late.

Questions to ask before you pay

Which charges are excluded from this quote, and which of them are billed at destination?
Is the rate valid for a set period, and what changes it?
Who invoices the destination charges, you or an agent?
What happens to the price if the sailing is rolled to the next vessel?
Is cargo insurance included, or arranged separately at declared value?
Which entity is named as importer on the customs entry?
How many free days at destination before storage starts?

Answers in writing are worth more than answers on a call, because you can check them against the invoice when it arrives.

We have moved cargo out of China since 2010, from an office in Yiwu, by sea, air and rail to more than 200 countries. On a first order, send the carton count, the weight, both addresses and your deadline to [email protected] or +86 152 6732 4109. We quote within 24 hours and list the charges separately, so you can see what each part of the journey costs.