{"id":3841,"date":"2016-03-07T16:48:07","date_gmt":"2016-03-07T16:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mercatorcargo.co.uk\/?p=3841"},"modified":"2025-08-15T14:27:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T13:27:08","slug":"importing-from-china-into-the-uk-a-freight-forwarding-case-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mercatorcargo.co.uk\/importing-from-china-into-the-uk-a-freight-forwarding-case-study\/","title":{"rendered":"Importing from China into the UK \u2013 A Freight Forwarding Case Study"},"content":{"rendered":"

UK based freight forwarder<\/a>, Mercator, was recently approached by a UK based company, Nim\u2019s Fruit Crisps, to assist with the import shipping from China<\/a> of some machinery.<\/p>\n

Nim\u2019s had purchased the goods from the Chinese manufacturer on an FOB (free on board) basis.\u00a0 FOB is one of many international trade terms (INCOTERMS) which sets out who is responsible for different parts of the international shipment.\u00a0 It is generally recommended to agree to purchase your goods FOB when they are coming from China.\u00a0 FOB means that the supplier of the goods (the exporter) will arrange for your shipment to be delivered either to the port or warehouse in China.\u00a0 From there, you are free to arrange for any UK based freight forwarder to take control of the shipment and arrange for the freight to the UK, UK customs clearance and delivery to your door.<\/p>\n

FOB is best used when importing from China because it gives the UK agent ultimate control of the UK costs once the shipment arrives in the UK.\u00a0 We have found that sometimes if the exporter (the company\/person you are purchasing the goods from in China) arranges the ocean freight for you, the cost may seem competitive compared to what the UK freight forwarder is offering.\u00a0 However, we have seen many importers stung financially, as once the shipment arrives in the UK there are extremely high charges to be paid upon import which cannot be avoided.\u00a0 It works whereby the exporter has arranged for a UK agent to accept the shipment once it arrives, for which the exporter expects a remuneration in kind for giving the shipment to that particular agent.\u00a0 The collection of this remuneration in kind unfortunately is built into those high charges you did not expect to be billed for.\u00a0 It\u2019s essentially a \u2018back hander\u2019.<\/p>\n

\"nims<\/p>\n

Fortunately Nim\u2019s agreed an FOB term, and so they contacted us to handle the ocean freight, UK clearance and delivery for them.\u00a0 Our agent in China assisted to liaise with the Chinese exporter to arrange the drop off of the machinery to the origin port: Huanghua.\u00a0 Huanghua port is just outside Beijing and Tianjin, in the north-east of China.\u00a0 We were then able to arrange the sea freight from China to Felixstowe port in the UK.<\/p>\n

As the cargo was not enough to fill a full shipping container, we arranged for the crated machinery to be loaded and shipped in a shared container.\u00a0 Opting to ship goods as an LCL (less than container load) shipment brings the cost of the freight down.\u00a0 Sea freight from China takes around one month.<\/p>\n

Once the shipment arrived in the UK, Mercator complied the documents, arranged to pay HMRC import VAT & Duty that was due on Nim\u2019s behalf, and then arranged for a truck to deliver the machinery to their door.<\/p>\n

It is always recommended that you speak with a freight forwarder before you commit to buying goods, just to make sure that the commodities you are hoping to purchase will not be costly or impossible to import into the UK, to get advice about which Incoterm you should negotiate and to find out how much importing the goods might cost you. \u00a0If you want to import goods from China, then get in touch to discuss or to get a quote: +44 2392 756 575<\/span> or email sales@mercatorcargo.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UK based freight forwarder, Mercator, was recently approached by a UK based company, Nim\u2019s Fruit Crisps, to assist with the import shipping from China of some machinery. Nim\u2019s had purchased the goods from the Chinese manufacturer on an FOB (free on board) basis.\u00a0 FOB is one of many international trade terms (INCOTERMS) which sets out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":3664,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-freight-forwarder-experience"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mercatorcargo.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mercatorcargo.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mercatorcargo.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mercatorcargo.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mercatorcargo.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mercatorcargo.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mercatorcargo.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mercatorcargo.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mercatorcargo.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mercatorcargo.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}