It's a re-occurring topic which comes back on almost every online FBA Sellers group 'Ship DDP its easier and cheaper'. As you'll know by reading various other articles, it's more commonly a bad idea to ship DDP than to do so.
However, what is very concerning is having the insight and knowledge of HOW cheap rates are given by your supplier overseas, and how this may affect you as the importer.
This isn’t some scare tactic to make you want to use Westbound Logistics! Use our worst rival if you must – just please understand our advice.
Suppliers will charge you for freight at what seems a great deal, either as a separate charge or built in to your product price therefore, an inflated price.
In reality, they’d have paid very little, zero, or gained a rebate from the origin Forwarder. Your shipment will arrive, and you’ll need to pay the Freight Forwarder arrival charges. What should usually be small-fry, becomes a huge inflated array of land-side charges which are sometimes quadrupled or more.
This is because, the extra charges make up for the low/zero/rebated freight charges their Chinese office gave your supplier. They will have to send back a % to them to balance the books.
The result is; you’ve paid the supplier extra for freight, AND you’ve paid it again within hidden charges in the land-side procedure.
This really isn’t something that usually falls into an area that needs explaining but was completely unfortunate for us and the customer to experience it together, especially on the first job. This has never happened to us before. Never, has a supplier or any factory/warehouse refused to actually load the vehicle that’s arrived for collection. It’s not just unforeseen, it’s ridiculous!
Just like a delivery in reverse, a driver takes your goods to curb side or your door if its small Amazon style parcels. At no point, is a delivery driver insured or expected to go one step further INTO your home, unpack your newly bought shirt and hang it in your wardrobe. Unless of course you buy Furniture/White Goods, and pay for the extra service known as ‘white glove’ or fitting/installation fees.
The same with a pick up – a driver needs the warehouse staff to fetch the goods from inside the warehouse, and bring it to him (or considering he may not be able to lift it, bring it on a forklift to the vehicle).
It transpired that, the supplier selling the goods was actually a middle man, and his chosen supplier was perhaps adverse to selling to 3rd parties who come to collect themselves? That’s all we can make of it, but we thought as a learning curve it’s best to highlight to newly importing FBA sellers, a driver drives, and a warehouse operative operates the goods to the vehicle.