The nightmare of importing from China. Your opinions please

[Robert]

I ordered 200 gas blowtorches, plus other things, from a company in China. Quite a small order I agree.

While in transport I had an email to say that the torches were faulty, but they would sort out the problem when they arrived and I had checked them.

When they arrived I was shocked at the amount of money I had to pay to handle the pallet, customs and UK haulage. It was about 50% of the cost of the goods in the first place! Eating into my profits, but still leaving a little to play with.

I checked 20 at random and 15 were faulty. Testing them was quite tricky, leaving blowtorches burning for an hour and took an afternoon and a lot of gas!

The chinese company now say they will send 150 torches to me, but when they arrive I have to pay the same import costs again, meaning there is virtually no profit at all. They won't ship by air, saying it would be far too expensive.

I'll probably have to spend days testing the rest, and then pay to have them destroyed. And I'll be stuck with torches I'd have to sell at a loss to get any money back at all.

Any suggestions that anyone can offer?

[WelshPixels]

I used to work for a company that imported computer components from China and Taiwan and we had similar problems.

A lot of companies out there have zero quality checking to reduce costs. and we would normally expect to have about a 5% failure rate.

In the end we set up a deal where we would give them the serial numbers of the failed items and they would credit us for them. It was all done on trust and it saved us and them the cost of sending and returning the items.

Rather than sending you new stock could they not credit you or give you a refund?

[jk]

been there done that, it can be very profitable. But it all boils down to who to trust over there.

[mascientific]

Maybe It's normal if you import from the manufacture directly and no familiar contact in china. Because it's difficult for you to know if they are good manufacture or not. My friend in canada is lucky, because I'm his cooperator here. I live in china and can do investication for best quality and price. And do acceptance before the manufacture shipping. So you never need worry about the quality and how to save the money at custom, because I'm here. Hope to make a friends with you. My name is rocky.

[WakingDragon]

Next time you need to import something PM me. We source suppliers, arrange manufacturing and inspections and do the shipping and customs clearance. We have been doing this for about 10 years now so there isn't much we haven't seen. We have an office based in Hong Kong from which all of this is run, and the UK company manages the imports/customs.

200 blowtorches does not sound like a large quantity, but it depends how big they are as to how cost effective importation will be. Next time just give me a shout and I can work out the cost for you in advance.