The landed cost is not the invoice price
The number a dealer needs before quoting a customer is the landed cost: the price of the goods plus freight, insurance, duty, and any clearance and handling charges to the point of delivery. Quoting from the invoice price alone is how a job that looked profitable turns out not to be.
The size of that gap depends on the destination market and on the terms agreed, so it has to be calculated per shipment. A rate that applied to a previous order to a different market is not evidence of anything.
Agree the incoterm first
The incoterm — the three-letter trade term — decides where responsibility passes from seller to buyer. It determines who arranges and pays for freight, who arranges insurance, who clears the goods and who pays the duty.
The practical consequence is that two identical invoices can have very different landed costs depending on the term. FOB, where the buyer takes responsibility once the goods are on board, is a different commercial deal from DDP, where the seller delivers to the buyer's premises with duty paid.
This has to be agreed before a price is given to the end customer. A dealer who quotes a customer on one basis and then discovers the shipment was agreed on another has lost the difference out of their own margin.
PLACEHOLDER: confirm which incoterms Fenghuai offers, which it declines, and produce a short dealer-facing explanation of each before this advice is published.
Classification, origin and the invoice
Every consignment needs a correct HS classification — the harmonised system code that tells customs what the goods are — and a stated country of origin. Both appear on the commercial invoice, and both need to be right.
A wrong description is not a minor clerical issue. It stops the consignment at the border while it is queried, which usually happens at the worst possible moment for the customer waiting on a set of wheels. Resolving it takes time you did not plan for and delays you cannot explain away.
Duty rates vary by destination and by classification, so the correct rate has to be looked up for the specific market rather than carried over from another shipment. VAT or sales tax treatment likewise varies by destination.
Packing, and why it decides your claim
Wheels are heavy and awkward to handle. Once a pallet is in a freight network it is moved by machinery, loaded and unloaded several times, and stacked against other freight. Packing that would be fine for a courier parcel is not adequate for international freight.
Freight-grade packing — reinforced corners, wheels separated from each other, the pallet itself secured — costs less than the damage claim it prevents. A claim is also slow: even where it succeeds, the customer is waiting while it is resolved.
Documentation is what decides a claim. Photograph the consignment before it leaves and again on arrival, and keep the inspection record with the shipment paperwork. A claim without evidence of the condition at dispatch is much harder to substantiate.
A pre-shipment checklist
Before any order ships, confirm: the incoterm is agreed and in writing; the invoice states the correct HS classification and country of origin; freight and insurance are arranged on the agreed basis; the packing meets a freight standard rather than a parcel standard; and photographs and the inspection record are captured before the goods leave the facility.
PLACEHOLDER: which of these Fenghuai performs, and which sit with the dealer, must be confirmed and documented internally before this checklist is presented to dealers as fact.