How to select a freight forwarding company for FBA's first shipment？
How to select a freight forwarding company for FBA's first shipmentAmazon merchants generally choose to use FBA to deliver goods, because this not only saves time and labor, but also allows the platform to provide more traffic support. Therefore, it is necessary for us to use FBA to deliver goods to Amazon warehouse.
However, many businesses find one at random on the Internet when they first deliver goods, or recommend one through a friend. They have been using this store since then, whether it is express delivery, air delivery or shipping. If there is no serious problem in the process, they generally will not replace it.
Different freight forwarders have their own advantages. Some freight forwarders have price advantages in air transportation in the United States, some freight forwarders have customs clearance advantages in Japan, and some freight forwarders can use your VAT to pay taxes independently in Europe. If a freight forwarding company can gather these advantages, it may be the leader in the international logistics field, but the reality is that there is no such all-round company at present.
Therefore, we should have at least three cooperative freight forwarding companies, and we need to compare their advantages and disadvantages. For example:
1. Compare the price of the same route
Not all freight forwarding companies are first-hand dealers. In this way, prices will vary. Sometimes there is only a difference of one or two yuan. Of course, if you deliver a lot of goods, this is undoubtedly a big expense. However, sometimes the difference is very big. For example, the freight forwarding company that has always cooperated with sends a shipment to France, and the quotation is 70 yuan/kg, and the fee for using the tax number is 500 yuan/year. However, the quotation from another freight forwarding company was 56 yuan/kg, which was 14 yuan different.
In addition, there will be some differences in the prices of different channels with the same timeliness. For example, DHL and UPS have basically the same timeliness, but the prices quoted by different freight forwarders may be different.
Therefore, it is necessary to calculate the most favorable price before we ship, especially before we ship to a new market.
2. Compare the timeliness of the same route
When we deliver goods, sometimes we may be in a hurry to replenish the goods, sometimes we prepare the goods for the peak season, and the requirements for timeliness will be different. However, different freight forwarding companies have different logistics resources, which will lead to different timeliness. No matter whether our own needs are fast or slow, we'd better know the timeliness of different freight forwarding companies in different channels in advance, so that we can ensure that we are prepared and take it easy when we need to use it.
3. Comparison of customs clearance capabilities of different freight forwarders
Especially when the goods are delivered to European countries, the customs clearance capability of freight forwarding companies is particularly important. European countries are much stricter in customs clearance than the United States, so there are often problems that goods cannot be cleared. However, powerful freight forwarding companies can clear goods through their resources. However, some freight forwarders who are only responsible for receiving and shipping goods have no such ability. If the goods are detained in Shanghai, the freight forwarders can only let the merchants find someone to solve the problem. Although there are many customs clearance companies outside, the service fees charged by others will be relatively high. Therefore, we need to compare the customs clearance capacity.
4. Compare the accounting periods given by different freight forwarders
When there is little difference in price, timeliness and customs clearance capacity, we need to compare the accounting period that can be given by the freight forwarder. For a business, the health of cash flow is also critical. The payment period given by different freight forwarding companies will vary. Some require cash settlement (that is, you will pay when your goods arrive at the warehouse of the freight forwarding company), some require payment when the goods arrive at the FBA warehouse, some require monthly settlement, and some require quarterly settlement.
Of course, the first time you cooperate with a freight forwarding company, the account period is usually not very long. With the deepening of cooperation, we can talk in the light of the actual situation. The specific payment period will be given to you, which has a certain relationship with the quantity of each shipment and the frequency of monthly shipment. Of course, it is also related to your negotiation ability.
There are many other details that need to be compared, such as the working attitude of the pickup staff, the attitude of the customer service staff, and the attitude of the financial staff. After all, the freight forwarding company is actually a service company for merchants. We have the right and need to make serious comparisons. We will choose whoever has better comprehensive services.
Therefore, when we are not very busy in the off-season, it is necessary for us to know more about some freight forwarding companies, which is also the resource we must master and continue to optimize. Only the freight forwarding company that is suitable for each other is our best choice.
Remarks: The above content is only an internal opinion and is for reference only.
