Delivery by Supplier vs Logistics company
There are two main methods to deliver goods from China to Amazon fulfillment centers:
- Ask the supplier to ship goods directly to Amazon fulfillment centers
- Use the services of a third-party logistics company .
The first variant may seem like an obvious choice at first glance: what’s the point to involve a middleman company, if the supplier can organise the delivery himself? However, in practice it usually makes the delivery process more complicated and leads to certain risks.
Firstly, Chinese suppliers usually do not include customs duties into the shipping costs. In most cases the client does not expect this and has to deal with all the consequent problems on his own.
Secondly, Chinese factories do not specialise in logistics, so they use the services of a partner shipping company, often having very vague knowledge about the specificities of the Amazon FBA program. Language barrier and the peculiarities of Chinese mentality make things even more complicated.
Thirdly, there is no motivation for the supplier to go into details, developing the best delivery method in terms of transit time/shipping costs and supervising all transportation stages.
All these factors increase the risks of potential problems for the client. The best way to avoid them is to let a professional logistics company handle the delivery.
Specially for Amazon FBA vendors we have developed a set of delivery services from China.
The logistics service package includes:
- Choosing the best possible delivery method in terms of transit time and service costs, based on your requirements.
- Checking the shipment for compliance with Amazon FBA requirements.
- Supervising all transportation stages from the pickup point to the Amazon warehouse destination.
- Providing information about the current status of your shipment.
- Full responsibility for customs clearance procedure.
- Negotiations for compensation with the transport company in case of damage or loss of the goods.
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