Shipping, Freight and the Real Cost of Importing
The factory price is rarely the landed price. The guides in this topic cover the stretch between the factory gate and your warehouse: forwarders, documents, freight choices and the charges that appear after the invoice.
We consolidate goods from many factories into single loads every week, so we see where freight money leaks. These guides show how to compare forwarders, which transport terms to agree, and how to keep a budget honest when the yuan moves.
Start with these three
- Hidden Costs When Importing from China: 7 Surprises
- How to Choose a Reliable Freight Forwarder: 6 Checks
- Cost Control in China Procurement as the RMB Moves
If you read only three: the hidden costs guide protects your margin, the forwarder checks protect the goods, and the cost control guide protects the budget across the whole year.
All guides in this topic
- How to Choose a Reliable Freight Forwarder: 6 Checks: Six checks for choosing a forwarder, from licensing through to how they handle exceptions.
- Key Points to Note in International Transportation: Incoterms, documents and handover points: the transport basics buyers most often get wrong.
- Hidden Costs When Importing from China: 7 Surprises: Seven charges that appear after the invoice, and how to budget for each of them.
- Cost Control in China Procurement as the RMB Moves: Managing procurement cost while the yuan moves: a practical 2026 playbook.
Two habits keep freight costs predictable. First, book the shipment when the production slot is booked, not when goods are ready, because vessel space and factory queues move together. Second, consolidate: one load from five factories costs less than five loads, and it arrives with one document set. Both habits are built into how we run client shipments out of Guangzhou.
How we can help
Consolidation is where most of these savings hide: fewer shipments, fewer fixed fees, one set of documents. Ask us to quote your load and we will show the consolidation saving next to the single factory shipment.
