Shipping is one of the most important part in business transaction for the reason that the shipping cost will be finally added to the product cost affecting your profit. What’s worse, sometimes you are forced to give up the product because of high shipping cost. Therefore, every importer should attach much importance to getting best shipping quote.
How to get the best shipping quote? There are six tips shared with you below:
Tips 1. Learn more shipping methods before you ask for a shipping cost ,See our shipping methods ,So, you can ask the shipping agent to give you a quotation depends on by sea , by truck , by air ect . the way and the content you ask the shipping agent is more important , they will feel that you are professional in this area, so they won’t offer you a higher price .
- Provide complete and accurate relative information to your freight forwarder as much as possible. And the information includes shipping method(by air / by ocean), freight term(EXW / FOB / CIF…), pick-up location, discharge port, description of product, HTS code, packing weight, packing dimension and quantity of carton. Telling them the pick-up location like factory address helps them figure out the trucking cost. By checking HTS code, they can let you know the estimated tax and duty. Having these detailed shipping information, your forwarder will be glad to offer you costs efficiently.
- Try to get at least three freight forwarders’ One of the quote should be your Chinese supplier’s freight forwarder. Their quotation would be cheap but it’s not necessaryto use them. You can regard it as a reference.
- Make sure all shipping information that you provide to those freight forwarders is consistent. Sometimes the information changes because of you or your supplier. Then you need to update the changes to your freight forwarders so that they can give you updated price for your reference. Only if the information that you provide to those freight forwarders is the same, can the price comparison be meaningful and worthy.
- Get the breakdown quotes from your freight forwarders. For example, you need to ask them to list the shipping charge, document charge, pick-up charge, delivery charge, service charge, etc. If you ask all your forwarders to follow this request, it will be convenient for you to compare the costs one by one respectively. If one forwarder just gives you the total cost and anotherone gives you listed costs, you won’t know where exactly the differences are and won’t know how to bargain.
- Negotiate with the freight forwarder that you like most. After you get the breakdown quotes, you will know which part from one forwarder is more expensive than another forwarder. And more importantly, you should have good knowledge about shipping so that you can analyze why one quote is more expensive than others. After that, you are ableto negotiate the price with your forwarder and get good result. For instance, if the pick-up charges from those forwarders are different, you can ask the one you like most that can they offer lower pick-up charge or the same charge that the other forwarders offer because the pick-up location is the same. Good freight forwarder will always take it into consideration.
After these six tips, it’s time to put them into practice. Hope they can help you get the best shipping quote and bring you more profits.
Shipping consolidate shipments from different suppliers in China