Hi!
We’re looking to do a big shipment of our best-selling product into FBA directly from China (about 83 boxes).
As we’ve never done it before - I wanted to check, is there a maximum boxes I can create an inbound FBA shipment for before I need to use the LTL (pallet option)?
I asked our supplier and they said it’s MORE expensive to ship the products on pallets, so we would prefer not to if possible.
Would really appreciate your help!
Tatjana
I think the limit, is something like 500 boxes.
But I do think that your supplier is trying to pull the wool over your eyes as regards a pallet shipment.
I struggle to believe that it’s cheaper to send 80 boxes, rather than one or two pallets.
Maybe you need to look an alternative courier.
I don’t ship from China, but as an equivalent, I do ship multiple boxes into FBA.
For a box using UPS, it costs about £3, depending on size etc.
I can fit possibly 100 of those boxes on a pallet.
So to send them separately via UPS, it would cost about £300, whereas if it was on a pallet, it would be about £40.
Obviously a lot depends on box size/weight, but wherever it’s from, it’s virtually guaranteed to be cheaper on a pallet.
I believe parcel shipping is VERY heavily subsidised in China, pallets might not be covered by the same subsidy.
So it might be cheaper for them to send stuff box by box, labour is cheap, so even if it’s really inconvenient it’s probably still a better deal for them.
Possibly, but it’s still worth checking out.
But it would have to be one hell of a subsidy to make that worthwhile.
It can be as little as 1p per parcel (upto 2kg), it goes up beyond that but it’s nowhere near what we’d expect to pay.
The US tried to pull out of the postal treaty because of it, but backed down a few years ago.
Because the 2nd biggest economy in the world is in a 3rd-World country… apparently.
Thanks a lot for your feedback, everyone!
I think as we’re based in the UK, the shipping rates are actually quite different here than in the US. I’ve asked a few local shipping forwarders and they didn’t give me the impression that it would be much cheaper to ship LTL… although I must say, there is a lot of conflicting information out there.
I’ll keep enquiring 
Thanks again!