importing, picking up clearing the goods myself

[connell83]

I currently import goods from China to UK. A very trustworthy friend in China buys them from the factory, and pays for a chinese exporter to ship them. Whenthey get to UK, I dont know what happens, but TNT usually deliver them to my house, they must be the clearing agent and freight forwarder as far as I can guess.

I am now importing a lot and this method is becoming too expensive and I have to reduce costs. I dont need an import license (i dont think) as it is simple goods.

I want to pick up the goods form the dock/airport and clear them through customs myself, as I know this will be extremely cheaper. Has anyone got experience in this?

How do I know when it has arrived at the dock to pick them up? and is all I need a C88 formand copy of suppliers invoice?

Any advice would be most sincerely appreciated. I might be able to get you some very cheap wholesale too.

 

[stephendoyle]

hi connell83,

we have this problem importing mobile phones from the far
east to the UK.

didn't get involved too much in the logistics however; we found
that if you import them into (i think it was Amsterdam) and you go
and collect them by Van etc.. you will not pay vat on them.

don't know how true this was but in the end we got the goods
to be shipped straight to our customers and the vat people
changed the way mobile phones are handled as well.

maybe others can shed light on this.

regards
stephen doyle

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

If you use someone like TNT, you will have to use their clearance service. Dont they only charge £10-15 for handling? You do get clobbered on their shipping charge - make sure freight is prepaid and it says so on your invoice.

If your shiments are over 20-30kg's, you could use a consolidator or airfreight them yourselves, nut you would have to use a local handling agent. You will then need to pay them several small charged, like clearance, handling, storage (if you dont collect in 48 hours) etc.

It can be more work,but savings are there to be made, especially on larger shipments. I habe not airfreighted from HK in some time, but the costs were about £1/kg and they do variate.

I am not sure if you can clear yourself, but I would generally say dont - the UK agents are experts and it might not be as simpole as they make out!

 

[ellisn]

Hi Connell83

I looked into the same thing myself a while back, even asked the same question but ended up getting a freight forwarder here in the UK to handle it all. It makes life so much easier. I import from Shanghai from various suppliers, I just let my freight forwarder know, they give me a contact who handles the Shanghai freight, the contact then liaises with the suppliers and consolidates the orders etc. The freight forwarder handles all the customs clearance and delivers to my door where I pay over the freight, customs duty and VAT which they pay on my behalf. The only thing I had to sort out was a pseudo turn as I'm not VAT registered.

As a rough guide my most recent order worked out at £550 for 162Kg using air freight + the VAT and Duty. An order I have going through at the moment but sea freight works out at £340 for 740kg as it's going sea freight, cheaper but will take 5 weeks longer to get here.

Hope this helps and good luck

Neil

 

[The Chief]

How much weight are you shipping over mate?

Try Arends International


They are extremely competative and helpful.

 

[connell83]

At least 500kg I am shipping over. I live in North Lincolnshire.
On the advice so far, it seems I will have to hire a freight forwarder to pick it up at the port in UK rather than do it myself.
I'm not quite sure how to go about that but I will contact some freight forwarders to find out what needs to be done, in terms of what forms need to be agreed between the two parties (chinese exporter and uk forwarder).
Unless anyone can shed further light on that?

 

[The Chief]

500kg ok really it needs to go on a ship if its that heavy (for obvious resons)

If you ring Arends 01925 223323 they'll go through it all with you.

all you do is get a quote including any duties and taxes, their agent over there will sort it all out and then they will take delivery and sort the customs aspect of it all and deliver to your door.

Give them a ring, they are very down to earth and helpful.

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

500kg is a lot to airfreight.

If you live on reorders of 500kg, I would say ship about 2-300 by air and the rest by sea. For the next order, get it shipped, by sea, a couple weeks early. You should do this (sea) for your regular goods. This will get you out of the air freight habit, saving you hundreds of pounds per shipment and thousands per year.

On air freight, ensure it is prepaid by the factory.

You could contact a compay called Signet, at Heathrow, they offer a goo UK handling service and also have an office in Fexlixstowe for seafreight.