Many British firms buy finished products and components from China these days. This is because China is now firmly established as the leading manufacturing country in the world. Numerous European and North American brands produce products that are made in Chinese factories so whether you are importing automotive parts, clothing, gym equipment, medical tools or anything else, the likelihood is that you will be able to find a suitable supplier in the People’s Republic.
However, importing freight from China is not immediately straightforward. After all, shipping goods from the Far East to the UK means booking a container that will depart from a Chinese port, such as Shenzhen, Guangzhou or Maca. This will then have to make its way thousands of nautical miles to the British Isles via the Indian Ocean, the Suez Canal, the Straits of Gibraltar and the English Channel. To put it simply, importing from China means relying on a lengthy supply chain. As such, British importers won’t just need to find a suitable Chinese supplier but an intermediary who can get their goods through Chinese customs and onto an ocean-going vessel that won’t take forever to reach the UK.
The good news is that there are freight forwarding firms in the UK that have the necessary expertise not only to get goods into the country from China quickly but to do so affordably, too. There are three main ways to have freight imported from China without costing the Earth. What are they?
To begin with, large shipments of freight can be imported from China in your own shipping containers. When you are dealing with heavy or bulky items, air freight becomes uneconomical. Having your supplier load one or more shipping containers for onward shipment to the UK will cost less than you might think. The more containers you need to be shipped, the lower the cost – generally speaking – because there is an economy of scale to be enjoyed.
The next option is to share your container shipment with others who want to import goods to the UK. The problem that many importers face, of course, is finding who they can group their shipment with. According to Essex-based Barrington Freight, a freight forwarding firm which arranges groupage shipments from China frequently, this is why many British importers turn to professionals in the field of international logistics. More often than not, groupage shipments from China will be matched with three or more British importation firms, so the costs associated with the consignment can drop significantly when they’re shared among multiple importers.
Finally, more and more companies import with very low costs from China nowadays because they use a drop shipping model. With this approach, the humble shipping container becomes your temporary warehouse so you don’t need one in the UK at all. Instead of having your orders come to you, they are sent directly to your customers. Numerous Chinese suppliers are geared up to support drop shipping consignments to the UK. On arrival at a British port, the consignment is split up into individual orders and these are forwarded directly. This approach suits e-commerce businesses and is certainly worth considering if much of your business is conducted online nowadays.
