Current Shipment Costs from China to UK
Hi There,
I’m looking to ship my first order of goods from a Chinese supplier. I feel like the prices i’m getting for shipment are way higher than I anticipated, more than double the cost of the product (that’s by air tbf), and I’m starting to feel like it’s unviable to list this product if shipping is truly this expensive.
The shipment is as follows:
150 x individual packed cartons (28x28x15cm) each weighing 0.8kg, so around 120kg shipment in total.
The goods order totals around $1400 for the 150 units. The lowest shipping cost I can find, by sea, is almost $1600, no DDP. By air it’s somewhere near $3500, again no DDP, which is absurd to me for a 120kg shipment.
This is an Alibaba supplier (I’m aware of the caution here), and the indicative costs I’ve found are from Alibaba. Are they way off or is it something to do with Chinese New Year? I can get FedEX to ship 25 units for less than £70 and a fraction of the time, so by my logic I might as well just do a handful of individual courier shipments. (Guessing there are big caveats to this?)
What am I missing here?
TIA!
21 replies
Seller_NoLYurmb006tq
Prices have rocketed with shipping expect quotes to be an average of 3-4 times higher for a good while Incant see them ever going back to how it was before, you will slowly see price rises in all categories
Seller_2Zn4LKv3YOnlV
Chinese New Year can have an impact on shipments - in a previous job I sourced and imported consignments of goods and packaging from China and for a month (usually a week before and three weeks after CNY) the factories were all closed so nothing happened at all.
I used a shipping agent for all imports - the supplier shipped to port and the agent then arranged shipping from China by sea (takes about 4-5 weeks) and handled the customs clearance into U.K. and delivery to us from the U.K. port to our factory.
Shipping cost was about 30% of value of goods. Plus import duty, VAT, handling charges (minimal) and U.K. delivery.
Re Fedex quote for £70 for 25 units I am assuming this price is based on actual weight? i.e. 20kg? I think you might find the actual price higher as the air cost will be based on higher of volumetric weight and actual weight - volumetric weight of each unit is 2.35kg so Fedex would use this as the unit weight not the actual weight.
They will also charge the same import duty, VAT and handling charges on arrival to U.K. from China.
Seller_YhVpuyNJnTnUw
Lack of containers, 20ft cost was 1200 now 6000approx
all depends on volumetric weight too. so your parcel may weigh 1kg but the volumetric weight could be 15kg
Seller_t9I1sljoYvpU9
Thanks All. So basically it sounds like I really picked the worst possile time to do my first shipment :-/
Seller_t9I1sljoYvpU9
Just out of interest, what are the effects you’re all seeing because of this shipping nonsense? I imagine there’s now a huge push for sellers to find domestic manufacturers/suppliers despite the higher up-front costs?
Seller_0xavPE91kwzcZ
Yep - sea freight is now at least 4 times the cost of what it was in November. Air freight costs are simply insane.
Eventually these price increases will no longer be able to be absorbed by sellers and will have to be passed on to the customer. No doubt Amazon will be doing it’s best to drive down prices and increasing fees at any opportunity however. The middle man never wins big in this business.
