Sea Freight Shipping from China

When it comes to international import and export, ocean freight or sea freight is the preferred shipping method. For the majority of importers, LCL options, FCL options, large volumes, but also low prices are some of the main advantages why importers choose to deliver their cargo by sea.

With more than a decade of experience in helping individuals and companies from all over the world ship from China, F&C is by far the number one choice for anyone who’s looking for low shipping rates, fast shipping, and professionalism.

As one of the best rated freight brokers in China, we would like to share our experience and knowledge in the article below in hopes that the information we present will help you greatly improve your supply chain management.

If this is the first time you’re shipping product, then you may want to let your supplier handle the delivery for you. Sure, it’s a costly decision, but it allows you to focus on your business instead of wasting time on things that you don’t really understand.

If you’ve shipped product before, then you may want to use a forwarder so you can save even more money in the process.

Just get in touch with a good local forwarding agent and make sure he can also offer you overseas shipping options as well or just contact F&C.

How it works:

1. Request a quote
2. Submit the booking (By you or your supplier)
3. Your supplier or we make an arrangements for the inland delivery to the port.
4. Custom Deceleration and freight forwarding.
5. Pay the shipping cost
6. We handle the rest of the hard work on your behalf and will send you the bill of landing or release.

Once the goods ship, we carefully track them and keep you updated on the progress. F&C has a lot of connections with many carriers all over the world. Thanks to that, we can price our services as competitively as possible. After all, if you want to save money, but also have more control of your supply chain management, then you need to use a local freight partner.

Before you start your Sea Freight Shipping service, we strongly recommend to learn about below:

FCL stands for full container load. This means that whatever goods you plan to ship, they will be loaded into a full container. This is especially useful when shipping lots of product, since the more you ship, the less it costs you per container (from CY to CY).

LCL stands for less than container load. If you opt for this type of shipping option, then it means your goods will be consolidated with the goods of other importers (From CFS to CFS).

You can choose to use LCL or FCL to ship your goods, but sometimes one is better than the other and vice versa in terms of cost savings.

1. If you want to ship between one cubic meter and eight cubic meters of product, go for LCL.
2. If you want to ship between eight cubic meters and fifteen cubic meters of product, choose either LCL or FCL based on your particular case.
3. If you want to ship more than fifteen cubic meters of product, go for FCL.

Important Notes:

• If you want to ship product that is less than one cubic meter (say point five cubic meters at ninety kilograms) then should you go for courier or LCL? Well, many people think that sea freight is always cheap, but for small packages couriers such as FedEx, UPS, and DHL are a lot more practical and cheaper.
• If you have a package that’s less than one hundred kilograms, then choose to deliver it via express courier since it’s cheaper.
• Depending on the destination, you may very well save good money even on packages of two hundred kilograms.

When delivering to China, these are the 3 most important incoterms to consider. They represent the amount of shipping paid for the supplier to handle. Depending on the selected incoterm, the supplier will be able to ship the goods to:

1. Your chosen facility (DDU/DAP) and doesn’t include taxes and tariff.
2. A nearby port in your country (CIF). This includes maritime insurance.
3. A nearby port in China (FOB).

Those who don’t have the right forwarding agent and are new to importing may want to choose an incoterm that ships their cargo as far as possible. We recommend that you select FOB and we’ll handle shipping the goods your door or chosen port.

If you want, then we can also deliver the goods to your door. Compared to other shipping companies, including UPS, FedEx, etc, common LTL/FTL carriers offer only curbside delivery or door to door services. This means that the freight is never touched by the driver. This type of shipping method is known as Shipper Loads/Receiver Unloads or Dock To Dock. If you’d like to opt for inside or residential delivery, extra fees will apply.

When it comes to the maximum control of goods, we have a lot of buyers asking use whether they should choose EXW. In our opinion, you should never choose this term unless you want to ship samples or other small packages out of China.

Once you do a bit of research and learn more about what EXW actually means, you’ll change your mind about using it. Let’s say that you want to buy some goods from a manufacturer. You send the truck to get the goods, but the manufacturer has no obligation to load them into the truck. You’ll also run into problems with the customs declaration at the loading port. It’s also important to know that if you choose FOB, then you can test whether the supplier can provide customs papers or not.

If this sounds too difficult, rest assured, since we can handle everything for you, even if the seller insists on using EXW. However, the process is costly and time consuming and that’s why we always recommend FOB instead of EXW.

The ocean rates typically include the base rate, but also the surcharge. However, the rates do not include the port charges and customs clearance fees at either side, nor do they include taxes, duties, and any other types of charges.

Please be aware that international shipments are all subject to charges at their destination country. These fees include:

• Tax import fees
• D/O or the destination agent service fee.
• Destination terminal or port handling fee (for instance THC).
• Customs related fees in the destination country such as  duty

Below is a complete review of any type of rate or factors that can cause a difference in the sea freight rates.

Working with F&C will open up a lot of opportunities for you. In fact, there are many reasons why you should work with us, including:

1. We make it easy to track your shipment online and send you status update notifications.
2. Goods can be delivered to any Door/CFS/Port worldwide.
3. You have exclusive access to your shipment documentation.
4. Competitive rates on all shipments.
5. Vessels departing from China every seven days or less.
6. Direct, simple, and easy online booking process.
7. No obligation, accurate, and fast quotes.
8. All China FOB/EXW ports available.

F&C has a lot of experience in helping customers from all over the world ship product to the destination of their choice. We always meet and exceed our clients’ expectations by reducing costs, and assisting them every step of the way.

F&C specializes in transportation management services for online sellers, distributors, Amazon FBA, wholesalers, but also manufacturing companies that receive products from China.