If you want to import some products form China, one of the main points that you have to take into consideration is how to deal with your product freight. Even if you apply CIF terms, to avoid your lost and make maximum profit, you’d better know how to deal with shipping by yourself.

1. Decide whether you want to find a forwarder in your country or find a local forwarder in China.
2. Obviously, finding a forwarder in your country is much easier, but the service charge in developed countries is much higher than in China.
3. The lower labour cost, lower exchange rate and other factors make Chinese forwarders’ service charge much cheaper.
4. There are a lot of Chinese freight forwarders, but only a part of them are reliable and are able to offer high quality service.
5. Post a topic on an international business website or send quotation inquiries to listed forwarders.
6. You will definitely receive a lot of inquiries.
7. Carefully evaluate those forwarders.
8. Get in touch with the forwarders you have chosen.

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Pay attention to the kind of business of your supplier; are they manufacturers, or 3rd party suppliers? Compare the advantage and disadvantage. Manufacturers may have a faster response in the process of product development, while 3rd-party suppliers have broader channels that can satisfy your other needs in the future.

Establishing healthy personal relationship with the key employees of your supplier is very important when doing business with Chinese people. Keep in mind that saving face is very important for Chinese people.
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1. Find the products you’re interested in. There are many sources to find your products. The internet is the easiest one to start with. There are many web listing services, including here, you can register your username, post the products of your interest, and you will receive tons of products supply information and perhaps a price list.

2. Establish a relationship with potential suppliers. Select a few potential suppliers to communicate with. When contacting suppliers, provide information about your company. The good suppliers already have more business than they can handle – you want to market yourself so that they want to do business with you. When qualifying suppliers, you can ask them how long they’ve been in business, which trade shows they attend, how long they’ve been attending these trade shows and which companies they manufacture for. Check and confirm everything that you can.
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If you have decided that you want to import goods from China but don’t know where start probably the best point of call is to find some manufactures to see what kind of goods they sell to get an idea of what is available.
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