As we are all aware, you should look in China if you want to get any product at lower prices. China is the global hub for importing many types of products, including safety pins to airplane parts. The varieties of products are more and also the size of every containment will differ. Hence, to take care of the condition of the products, you should hire the best china freight forwarder. The selected company should be professional and have experience in forwarding different products to different vendors.
You have landed on the right page if you are unsure who the best china freight forwarder is. Here, we will discuss everything that assists you in selecting the top china freight forwarder for your imports.
What Is Freight Forwarding?
Before jumping into looking at the best forwarder, let us understand the freight forwarding process in short. Freight forwarding is a key activity that is involved in the import process. Freight forwarding is a process under which the freight forwarder coordinates and ships the goods from one country or one place to another.
The mode of transportation can be various, including marine, rail, road, or air. The freight forwarder can be a company, an agency, or a single person. In other words, a forwarder, freight forwarder or forwarding company, or forwarding agency is a company or a person that coordinates and ships products for corporates or individuals to receive products from producer to the customers, markets, or the distributors.
Now let us look at the best china freight forwarder to get your imported goods from China.
Why Do I Need A Freight Forwarder When Buying From China?
Cheap
Since China enjoys the benefit of lower labor costs, lower expenses, lower exchange rates, and other factors, you can get freight forwarding services in China at lower prices. These factors don’t only make the shipping charges low but also the holding charges.
Agility
The Chinese freight forwarding company or agent will be generally agile since there is more competition in this field. This agility will help you even if you change your plan without prior notice.
Flexibility And Efficiency
To import goods from China, you must go through many paperwork, documentation, and local requirements. To perform all these things, you need a local freight forwarder. The language can also become a big barrier while transacting in China.
Personalized Services
The freight forwarder will take care of your complete logistic operations, and they can offer one-to-one services. It will help them to understand your needs more precisely.
Why Is Freight Forwarder Important?
Many people still think that hiring a china freight forwarder is an unnecessary cost that reduces the margin. And they think they can only handle shipping since only logistics is the thing freight forwarder is good at. But there are many other benefits of freight forwarders, as listed below.
Save Time & Energy
The biggest thing in your import business is how quickly you can import the products and make them available to the customers. If you hire the services of a freight forwarder, you can get the products more quickly than if you try to involve in the logistics. This is because the freight forwarders will have good contact in the transportation industry.
The freight forwarder will be the regular customer for the logistics company, and they will prioritize the request of the freight forwarder over someone new and one-time customer. Hence, hiring the best china freight forwarderis necessary if you want to save energy and time.
Save Money: Cost-Effective
If you are new to the shipping business, getting the lowest prices for shipping services will be difficult. And another challenge is there will be many logistics companies and modes of transport to choose from. If you are a newbie in this field, it is tough to decide the optimum mode of transport and the best logistic company.
On the other hand, selecting the best freight forwarder will help reduce the logistics’ overall cost. Even after paying the charges of the freight forwarder, the cost will become less than undertaking these activities by yourself.
Experience
There is no substitute for experience. If you are new to importing business, it won’t be easy to decide the best mode of transport and the correct logistic partner. The freight forwarders will be excelled in performing these activities since all these tasks are their day-to-day activities. Hence, hiring the freight forwarder will help to save time, energy, and money.
Local Knowledge Customs and Export Regulations at the Point of Origin
China is the best place to source all types of products; however, the biggest barrier is language and local customs and culture. If you don’t speak Chinese, it is hard to coordinate the logistics activities and get the products in your country.
Also, you need to be aware of the local customs and export regulations if you want to import. Hence, if you take the services of a freight forwarder, they help you in making the import process effortless.
Goods Consolidations
It is well known that it is often hard to find all the products or the varieties of the same product from a single place. If you import different products from different places, collecting the goods from all the sources and consolidating can become a nightmare task.
But if you hire a freight forwarder, you can forget this issue since they can help you consolidate all the products. Also, there will be a difference in the date of collection of products, and hence you need good warehousing services; this will be taken care of by the freight forwarder.
Multimodal Transportation
You can import products from China through many modes of transportation. The mode of transportation depends on various things such as type of product, urgency in getting the products, weight, and size of the goods, etc.
Depending on the nature, urgency, and size of the goods, the freight forwarders will help determine the best mode so that you can get the goods in time. They can ship using the road, air, train, and through the ocean.
What Are Freight Forwarder Services?
If you are new to the importing business in China, without the help of a freight forwarder will become difficult. Hence, many importers select the best china freight shipping method and companies to make the process easier. This is why freight forwarding service becomes essential. Let us look at the services a freight forwarder offers to every importer.
Sea Freight Forwarding Services
If you are looking to hire an ocean freight forwarder, that can be a great decision since they help you take all the tasks involved in the sea shipments. In sea freight forwarding always involves many activities such as transporting the products to the dock, loading the goods, booking the containers, etc. Hence, many importers opt for the services of the best sea freight agent to avoid all these headaches.
Container Forwarding Services
In sea forwarding services, the freight forwarder does many activities, and container forwarding services are one of them. It involves determining the best type of container depending on the size and quantities of goods.
FCL Shipping
FCL shipping or Full Container Load is needed when you have goods in larger quantities. In FCL shipment, a single party owns the complete container, and all the goods contained inside the container are of a single purchaser.
LCL Shipping
LCL shipping or Less than Container Load is needed if you have products in fewer quantities. This container is also called a consolidated container since many parties’ goods are contained inside a container. Hence, if the load of the goods is less, the freight forwarder chooses the LCL shipping method.
Air Freight Forwarding Services
Freight forwarder companies generally have both specialists in air freight forwarding and all modes of transportation specialists. The air freight forwarder help to determine what is the best air vehicle and all other aspect included in that process.
The air freight agent will have complete knowledge of air transportation, and they generally do not indulge in other modes of transportation. Hence, if you hire an air freight agent, you can get specialized services.
The activities involved in air freight forwarding need to be performed by the people who know this to make the process smoother.
Rail Freight Forwarding
Rail freight forwarding is one of the oldest and cheapest ways of getting the product delivered to your doorstep. However, this method arrives with some of the limitations. You can only avail of this service if your place can be reached by land. Or you can ask the freight forwarder to transport using rail and then select the convenient mode if there is no more option to transport through rail.
Express Freight
If you are importing perishable products quickly, you must select the express freight services. The products such as medicine, fruits, vegetables, meat, and other food products should be transported using express freight. Under this method, the importer can get the goods on short notice. The freight forwarding company or agency will also offer these services to the importers.
Amazon FBA Freight Forwarder
Amazon FBA or Amazon Fulfillment By Amazon is a service where Amazon picks, packs, and ships the products to the customer. In this service, the products will be stored in the fulfillment centers of Amazon. Amazon has the advanced fulfillment network in the world. You can find the best Amazon FBA freight forwarder in China if you search through various available means. FBA freight forwarder assists the sellers by transporting the goods from overseas factories to the Amazon distribution center locations. The FBA freight forwarder help to organize, warehouse, and take care of logistics.
Door to Door Freight Forwarder
China freight forwarder also provides the door-to-door freight forwarding service. That means freight forwarders deliver the goods from the seller’s factory or warehouse to the buyers’ warehouse or transportation center. From here, the buyer will store the goods and send them to the end customer location. To carry out these transportation services, the freight forwarder can use any of the transportation modes.
How Does Freight Forwarder Work?
The import process, paperwork, rules, and regulations about international trade look daunting for many traders, especially if you are new to international trade. Luckily, you can get hassle-free importing with the help of a freight forwarder. Freight forwarders take care of these activities on your behalf. Sometimes, it looks like an additional cost, but in fact, it can save you money, time, and energy.
Things to Note Before Choosing a Chinese Freight Forwarder
If you look for the best forwarder agent in china, you must consider many things to make your importing process effortless. Let us look at everything essential while choosing the freight forwarder.
Port Location
The port location is an important factor in the freight forwarding business. You can find several local freight forwarders in china, most of them situated near the ports. You can find freight forwarders mainly in industrial areas. Hence, you can find people search with Shenzhen freight forwarder, Ningbo freight forwarder, Qingdao freight forwarder, Guangzhou freight forwarder, keywords.
Registered Capital
The registered capital of the freight forwarding company is important since it let you know the worthiness of the agency or company. The higher the registered capital, the more resources they will have to facilitate and provide good services.
Always the freight forwarding companies required to pay for different modes of transport. Hence the registered capital and working capitals are important for every company. So, it is always better to choose a company with good financials to avoid delays in receiving the goods. Sometimes the companies with fewer resources delay the shipment process until they receive payment from other sellers.
Location
The company location is close to the coastal port is essential. If the company is located near the port, the transportation cost will be greatly reduce. Hence, if your products are sourced from a factory near a port, make sure to choose the freight forwarder in the same location if every other consideration is met.
Business Scope
Safety
The freight forward service provider must offer all the safety features. It is the foremost important thing since if they follow all the safety measures, you can rely upon their services and be free from all worries. The more safety precautions a forwarding company takes, the more security will be there for you.
Business Advantage
The freight forwarding company must have the business advantage. This will come if they are experience in the freight forwarding business for many years. One of the business advantages is the good contact with logistic companies; it will help get the shipping prices lesser than other competitors.
Price
The price of the freight forwarding services is significant since if the service provider quotes a higher price, the per-unit cost will increase, and consequently, it will reduce your profit margin. So, you need to compare the prices of different freight forwarding companies and opt for the cheaper one.
Easy to Communicate
It is hard to understand better and communicate if the freight forwarder will not speak English or your language. Hence, you must find a freight forwarder who can speak in your language and offer multiple ways of communication. The communication method should offer all the standard ways of communication, including call, email services.
Best Way to Find Freight Forwarder in China
Finding a freight forwarder in china is easy, but sometimes it can be tricky. The common ways to find freight forwarders in China are as follows.
Google Search
This is the most common way to find freight forwarders in China. Searching on Google is always a great way to find almost anything in the modern-day, and it applies to finding freight forwarders. You can search with the right keyword to land up in the websites of freight forwarders, or you can get the guideposts like this to find the freight forwarder.
Trade Shows
Every year in China, you can see many organized trade shows. If you visit such trade shows, you can contact the top freight forwarders, manufacturers, sourcing agents, etc. These trade shows will help you in knowing the freight forwarders in a better way.
Yellow Pages
Yellow pages contain the name, address, and contact details of all the major businesses; hence it is also a reliable and good way to find the freight forwarder for your import business.
Sourcing Agent
The best way to find freight forwarding services is through sourcing agents. The sourcing agents will help you in the end-to-end import business, from identifying the source to delivering the goods to your doorstep.
Conclusion
After seeing everything so far, now you can understand why it is so important to hire a china freight forwarder to make importing from china is a smooth process. However, sometimes it can be trickier if you are unaware of where to look for the best freight forwarder and the method of finding them. After reading this post, we hope you can become free from all the tensions and problems associated with that.
