Which Incoterm should a wood importer actually take?
Take FOB if you have a forwarder; take DDP only for small trial orders where you want a landed number, not a learning experience. CIF looks cheap on paper and usually costs more in destination charges.
| Term | Who pays freight | Who clears import | Our honest advice |
|---|---|---|---|
| EXW | You | You | Only if your forwarder wants to consolidate several Chinese suppliers yourself. |
| FOB (our default) | You (ocean) | You | Best control and usually lowest true landed cost. We handle China-side clearance and docs. |
| CIF | Us (to your port) | You | Convenient, but destination charges at US/EU ports often exceed the 'saving'. Compare all-in. |
| DAP / DDP | Us | Us (DDP) | DDP for trials under 5 cbm; beyond that you lose visibility on duty and you cannot use your own classification. |
| FCA + rail | You | You | An option for Central Europe; slower than sea to the North Sea, faster to inland cities. |
Transit times and port pairs
| Lane | Our gate | Transit | Frequency | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US West Coast | Lianyungang / Shanghai | 14–19 days | weekly | LA/LB; inland rail to Chicago +5–8 days |
| US East Coast | Shanghai / Ningbo | 28–38 days | weekly | NY/NJ, Savannah; transshipment common |
| UK | Shanghai / Ningbo | 30–38 days | weekly | Felixstowe, Southampton |
| N. Europe | Shanghai / Ningbo | 28–36 days | weekly | Hamburg, Bremerhaven, Rotterdam, Antwerp |
| Mediterranean | Ningbo | 24–32 days | weekly | Barcelona, Valencia, Genoa, Piraeus |
| Australia / NZ | Shanghai / Ningbo | 14–24 days | weekly | Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, bark-free builds |
| Japan / Korea | Lianyungang / Shanghai | 4–9 days | 2–3×/week | Short sea; the cheapest way to run small programmes |
| Gulf | Shanghai | 22–30 days | weekly | Jebel Ali, Dammam; USD settlement |
| Red Sea / East Africa | Shanghai | 24–34 days | weekly | Djibouti, Jeddah; check canal-status surcharges |
How we pack, and why the cube number matters more than the price
We quote CBM and per-container count with every price, because freight is paid on volume, not on your unit cost. A 3 mm thickness change that raises FOB 4% can cut landed cost 6% if it improves the stack.
- Carton engineering: we test three pack options and show you pieces-per-carton, CBM per 1,000 pcs, and total container count. On a light product this page moves the landed cost more than the FOB does.
- Moisture protection: 2 g desiccant per carton for interior goods, 0.15 mm container liner on transoceanic loads, boards on stickers with ventilation gaps, never face-to-face wet.
- Edge protection: 40 mm foam or corner cards on frames, boards, panel ends; band-strapping with corner blocks on pallets.
- Marking: your PO, SKU, carton n/n, gross/net, measurement, side mark and barcode, plus handling icons. We print to your spec sheet, not ours.
- Load plan: a drawing of how the container is loaded, bundle by bundle, so unloading at your DC is a 30-minute job rather than a sorting session.
Duty and tariff exposure: what we will and will not promise
We will state the HS/HTS line we ship under, note Section 301 and 232 exposure, and date-stamp it. We will not quote you a fixed duty rate without a date, because US measures on Chinese goods changed several times in 2025–2026.
- US: most 44-series wooden consumer goods carry a small base duty plus Section 301 exposure (25% on Lists 1–3, 7.5% on List 4A). Section 232 adds 10% on certain listed wood derivatives and 25% on cabinets and vanities from 14 October 2025. A further Section 301 measure tied to forced-labour enforcement has been applied at 12.5% from 24 July 2026. Every one of those lines must be confirmed against your HTS by your broker.
- EU: base duty on most processed wood goods is 0–3%, but the paperwork burden is EUDR (from 30 December 2026) plus REACH/CPR where relevant.
- UK: UK Global Tariff is generally 0–2% for these lines; UKFTS checking is your broker's job.
- Australia: 5% standard on most wood furniture, but a China-Australia FTA (ChAFTA) certificate of origin can reduce it to zero. We supply the CO.
- Gulf: 5% common external tariff, USD settlement, and Arabic/French retail labelling for consumer goods.
Ask us for a landed-cost worksheet with your quote: FOB, freight, duty estimate, port charges, and the assumption behind each line.
If something goes wrong
- Transit damage: photograph the container seal before opening, photograph the load before unloading, note it on the delivery receipt, then send us the file. We claim against the carrier or insurer and we ship replacements against the claim rather than waiting for the settlement.
- Quality claim: AQL 2.5 means the sampling plan is defined before production, with an agreed defect classification. Where we are at fault we credit, rework or replace; we do not argue about a photo.
- Customs query: we provide the treatment record, the invoice, the packing list and a classification memo within 24 hours. Files stay on our server for two years.
- Short shipment: counted and weighed at load, photographed with the seal number; if the tally is wrong we credit it against the next order without an argument.