Questions and answers
Every question this site answers, in one place
From “the bank sent our payment back” to “who answers for the commodity code” — every question this site answers, listed here and linked to the page that answers it.
- Questions on the site
- 152
How to use this page
What you’ll find here, and what you won’t
Each question sits on the page it belongs to: currency questions on the payment page, inspections on the customs page. This index doesn’t repeat the answers — it shows you all of them at once and sends you to the page where the answer is written.
You won’t find prices or rates on any page of this site. What a shipment costs depends on the goods, the volume, the route, the commodity code and the paperwork the product demands — a number quoted before we’ve seen the case would be invented. How a figure is arrived at is explained on the services page — after we have seen the job, and never as a price list.
There are hardly any delivery times either. The one exception is the China → Russia lane: it lists transit times from the carriers’ published schedules, and those are not our commitment. Elsewhere, whether the factory has finished production, how long a groupage load waits to fill, the queue at a border crossing, an inspection the risk system pulls out, Chinese New Year — none of that is ours to control. We can name the factors that move the schedule; we won’t make promises on behalf of a carrier or a customs authority.
If a question you have isn’t on the list, that doesn’t mean there’s no answer to it: the form at the end of this page goes to a person, not a bot.
01
Paying the supplier
Which routes the money takes to China and Europe, how an agency settlement differs from paying through some other company, the documents you get back, and what to do when a transfer comes back.
02
Sourcing and supplier vetting
Telling a factory from a reseller, how much the badges and ratings on a trading platform are worth, what a check turns up before the first payment, whose name goes on the contract, and what happens when the batch comes out defective.
We find the factory and verify it before your first payment
- Will you tell me which factory I am buying from?
- Do you take a commission from the supplier?
- What decides how much work a search takes?
- What if none of the suppliers fit?
- Do you work with small volumes?
- Who pays for samples?
- How is this different from an agent on the ground?
- How do you handle confidentiality?
Vetting the supplier you have already found
How to vet a Chinese supplier before the first payment
Purchasing on your behalf
03
Customs and documents
Who answers for the commodity code, what happens when customs reads the classification differently, who pays the duties, what customs wants to see in the contract, and how a physical inspection goes.
04
Certification and product approvals
Certificate or declaration, whether a Chinese certificate counts for anything here, when a letter of exemption is the answer, and why the paperwork is started before the cargo ships rather than after it lands.
05
Transport
Sea, rail, road and air side by side, plus what comes up whichever you pick: groupage, insurance, who answers for the cargo in transit, dangerous goods, and what happens when a load is held at the border.
International logistics between Europe, the CIS and China
Sea freight from China
Rail freight from China
Road freight from China
- Which is quicker, road or rail?
- How long does a truck take from China?
- How much fits in one truck?
- I’m being quoted a rate per kilo. Is that the same thing?
- What does a TIR carnet give us?
- We clear in Kazakhstan and move on into Russia. What changed?
- The cargo was damaged in transit. Who pays?
- Where should we clear — at the border or inland?
Air freight from China
- Why is the invoice higher than what I worked out by weight?
- Can goods with a battery in them go by air?
- What is the document the carrier asks for on batteries?
- Are liquids and cosmetics off limits?
- What are hidden dangerous goods?
- These are samples. Do they have to be declared?
- Is air always fast?
- How can we bring the cost down?
06
Official import and Chinese marketplaces
Buying on 1688, Taobao and Alibaba, what a 1688 price actually is, and what changes when the same purchase moves as an official import rather than as “cargo”.
07
Trade lanes
Europe, the CIS and China: who becomes the importer of record on each lane, what changes when the lane changes, whether lanes can be combined, and why most of these pages carry no transit times.
Trade routes between Europe, the CIS and China
China → Russia: from the factory to your warehouse
China to the CIS — from the factory to your warehouse
China → Europe: from the factory to your warehouse
Europe → China: getting European goods into China
Europe to the CIS — from a European supplier to your warehouse
08
Specific types of goods
Machinery, electronics and textiles each fail in a different place — a conformity document for the machine, a radio module in the device, a run that comes out different from the sample, a load that will not fit a container.
09
Services and market entry
What can be taken as a single service and what only works as a chain, where work on a new market starts, and who keeps the buyer relationship after the first shipment.
10
About the company
Whether we are a forwarder or a trading company, why the company is registered in Novorossiysk, which languages you can write to us in, and what to have ready for the first conversation.
Your question isn’t on the list
Describe the shipment and the specialist who works that lane will answer. If your goods can’t move the way you’re planning, we’ll say so before you pay the supplier, not after.