Shipping from China to UK

[Dogaids]

Hi

<<Edit by Mods>>

I will rephrase my question again. Shipping from China to UK. Does anyone know the cheapest air freight service.

Thanks and hope this does not get removed again!!!

 

[TotallySport]

Is there a reason you want air freight? at it will cost alot more than by see.

You will also need to add what size and weight of the packages.

 

[Jayser100]

Whether it's more expensive to ship by air depends on the size of the shipment. If the goods are small, it can be cheaper on a door to door service by air because you save on forwarding fees.

It may be worth getting the factory to give you a quote. Shipping is extortionate here in the UK, and it is often the case that your factory will be able to get a better price than you by booking in China.

 

[IMEX Sourcing Services]

Hi,

Its really hard to suggest a "cheapest air freight", as the charges of companies vary all the time. We have 4-5 agents that we work with on regular basis and either of them could be the cheapest at a given time, for a given service.

Also, if you are talking about the door to door courier - Big Boys - DHL, UPS, etc. they will almost always be more expensive than the private couriers here in China.

 

[petlover]

hi friend, I suggest the air mail,it is very cheap indeed,you can use this to send small things, if larger you may need other means of transportation

 

[Dogaids]

Hi Thanks for the response. I was looking at air freight to start with as i need quick delivery based on my orders being small to start with. At the start, the orders are only 150 units which equals one pallet.

The samples were recently sent to me from China by DHL and this was very expensive. The parcel cost £31 whereas the unit itself costs £30 to make.

I am trying Fedex next for more samples, unless someone can come up with something cheaper on air freight.

on_way_to_fame; Could you tell me more please as i only know of DHL or Fedex. The reason i didn't get agents involved at this stage was because i would need to then pay their fees and overall, it will cost me more whilst the orders are so small. I have never heard of big_boys. Would you kindly private message me the details of various companies. Do you currently work with China? Thank you very much.

 

[countybathroom]

I really appreciate for your valuable information, I think many people searching about the topic online. Keep it up.

 

[chrisbarnes86]

I am a freight forwarder and arrange shipments like this regularly for customers in the UK. My company work with an agent in China and we handle the collection from the factory (ex works) and arrange customs clearance and delivery. It's not the cheapest method but reliable and quick.

 

[GraemeL]

Just google

air freight from china


and you will have lots of choice!

 

[Jayser]

If you want the fastest and most reliable service, UPS are hard to beat. They clear customs in the air, deliver the goods and pick up a cheque for duties and VAT upon delivery, meaning not a second of time is wasted whilst they wait for your payment to clear. They collect from our factory one day, and deliver to us the next - it's unbelievable. Not the cheapest, but when we have customers waiting for product it's a fantastic service.

 

[IMEX Sourcing Services]

on_way_to_fame; Could you tell me more please as i only know of DHL or Fedex. The reason i didn't get agents involved at this stage was because i would need to then pay their fees and overall, it will cost me more whilst the orders are so small. I have never heard of big_boys. Would you kindly private message me the details of various companies. Do you currently work with China? Thank you very much.

I just wrote a massive post on this and lost it due to the Internet in China…really annoying. But I will start again.

I have been wanting to write a blog post on this for a while as I have asked many clients ask this question in the last few days. But I will try to write a quick summary here.

When sending courier in China you have quite a few options:
1. Big Boys like DHL, Fedex, UPS
2. Private Agents
3. EMS

When you get quotes from Big Boys directly they are extremely expensive. This is because they are not too interested in serving “residential” customers directly. Their target audience is business clients and private agents. Basically private agents have accounts with DHL and high volumes therefore they get preferential pricing. Working through private agents offers several benefits to DHL such as:

1. It’s less work for them, as they can collect large volumes from a single address rather than going to house to house.

2. Private agents essentially act as local salespeople for DHL without any investment for DHL which reduces their marketing cost substantially.

3. It lowers the customer service costs for DHL substantially as these agents themselves serve their customers and have enough knowledge to answer most queries.

A lot of people have the perception that as these people are middlemen they would be expensive, however, they are actually cheaper rather than going to DHL directly due to “economies of scale”. To illustrate.

I recently got some quotes for one of my UK Clients for a package and this is what I got:

DHL: 1505 RMB
Cheapest Private Agent using DHL: 405 RMB

You can see the savings can be huge. These private agents also work with other companies like Fedex and many times a single agent would work with multiple companies. Their price depends primarily on two factors:

1. The size of their account with the big boys
2. Their overheads (are they operating from home or have a nice office with lots of sales staff).

The second solution is using EMS, China Post’s service. This service can take some time and the tracking information isn’t always up to date but it’s usually cheaper then the big boys. I won’t trust my most valuable items with them though.

Finally, the private agents have other ways to cut costs, for e.g. if they specialise in a particular route, say China-UK, they would collect lots of small packages from customers and send it as one bulk package and their local clearing agent would then dispatch these individually. The risk here is that sometimes there can be problems with customs clearing and you could lose your goods.

 

[Jayser100]

Thanks for that, some good advice there. Certainly if your factory doesn't have their own agent or account with a major courier, an agent who can book you a door to door service is the way to go.

For surface shipments, I use SBS Worldwide and I have to say they are very good. They run their own containers from the major Chinese ports on a regular basis, and so part container loads don't cost the Earth.