Importing from China into UK

[Rus93]

Good day, I’m 18 years old, and my step dad currently doing business with China, which doesn’t include anything to do with import/export, but often he goes out there for meetings and so on, I spotted an opportunity in this, and decided that I wanted to import goods from there into UK, my research showed that UK is the second biggest toy import country in the world after US, so I decided to go with toys as it is a good market to get into with the right product. I've found out that in October, Shanghai is having a toy trade show, which I will be attending, finding the right product is not hard, and I’ve thought of ways of distribution, my only concern is import/shipping:|. I would like to find out more about that, if anyone has previously imported from china, could you please let me know what kind of things I have to think about and include, what problems have you faced at customs for example or anything else, any additional information/tips that would help.

I would really appreciate you taking your time and sharing your knowledge with me.

Kind Regards Rus

 

[jeanne]

Hi Rus, I am jeanne from China, Qingdao city. Gland to know you. Your ideal is excelent. I work in a garment factory do export business. Hope my sugesstions can help you.
First, you need an imoport license or import agent unless import small quantity by UPS/FEDEX or other express delivery.
Second, how is your payment? It is importent.
Last, If your order is small, fatory will not accept.

If you have any question, feel free to contrace me.
my e-mail:jeanne_eastshirt at yahoo.cn

Hope I can help you.

 

[alexlowe]

well done with your idea...

http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/layer?r.s=tl&topicId=1079717544

try this link, good luck

 

[james1980uk]

Happy to offer some help and guidance regarding importing from China, please send me an email james(at)firstpointfreight.co.uk and I will provide you with an overview of how things work regarding shipping, customs clearance, duty/vat issues etc.

Kind regards
James

 

[Chinadavid18]

Rus,

Good to hear about this venture. Yes, you are right, finding the right product in China is not too difficult but you must keep your costs as low as possible for yourself and the quality at an acceptable level for your UK customers. Do pay attention to quality control as this will come back to burn you if you just concetrate on price.

Try to use a local Chinese representative or friend to help you with the price negotiations as a Chinese person dealing with a Chinese person will always get a better deal than you (a foreigner) dealing with them yourself. I have lived in China for 5 years, can speak reasonable Chinese but always take a back seat when it come to price negotiations. This has saved me money.

Regarding logistics, we save a substantial amount of money by using a local Chinese delievery (we arrange this ourselfs) company a move the goods from the factory to the local warehouse near Shenzhen airport. We then use our regular logistics company deal with the rest. This again saves us a significant amount of money. (100kg Nanning - Shenzhen 350RMB). When you are quoted for deliver remember transport within China is extremely cheap.

Finally, if you want to export toys, I highly recommend going to Shantou in Guangdong province. There are a huge amount of toy factorys there that product quality products and very good prices. I am sure you would be able to get a very good deal there. The plane that I was on that when there was full of toy purchasers.

Good luck.
David

 

[noelheart]

Hello, welcome to China. This is a place full of recources, it won't let you down, go ahead.

 

[SparkMediaIndustries]

Hi Russ,

Congratulations being 18 and finding out what you want to do with yourself and avoiding job seekers and welcome to UKBF.

With this being your first import and you prob wont be VAT Registered what you need to do is find your Imports & Exports Agent now you can go on Google and type in customs clearance agents and loads pop up.

When your goods arrive in the UK you will need to fill out a form and that form is called the EORI C220 form which I can email over to you otherwise the agent you use can fill it out if he has your details but might charge you a small free (most charge about £35/£45).

When this form is filled out you will be given a number looks like a VAT no but its not a VAT No just similar and you can use that number over and over again for your imports inc exports too.

Now before you get quotes or start importing your goods you will need to get the following information from your supplier in china for a UK agent to give you a rough price.

Weight - of each product if different
Dimentions - of each product if different
Goods - name exactly what is coming into the UK
Value of goods (Total purchase price)

Also on toys you need a CE certificate from your supplier as well as far as I no with toys.

Once your agent has that information he then can put together a cost for you from your suppliers door in china to your door in the UK.

Now please take into advise that the best and cheapest way is if your terms of invoice is FOB not CIF or C&F because once your goods are in the UK you will get a lovely unexpected charge.

Now depending on the importing of goods you can fill out the EORI C220 Form as your goods are entering into the UK and customs will allow this they might no just they have done in the past and give you the number before the goods get here.

In case they don't you will have to pay at least a day or 2 in storage now this can range from £7/£13 per day depends on which airport and airline you use.

Hope that helps you out.

Also once we have that information from you we can put a price together for you and also can quote you on a door to door.

Looking forward to hearing from you.