Lots of Amazon sellers shipping goods from China to Amazon FBA warehouse directly or indirectly via international courier service such as DHL, UPS, FedEx, TNT and EMS. Although the shipping document formats of the international express companies vary from each other, the content is basically the same. The shipping document refers to waybill, invoice, packing list, inspection and quarantine information, fireproof explosion-proof and antimagnetic certification etc. We will mainly introduce the content on waybill and invoice of goods shipping from China to Amazon FBA.
Amazon FBA shipping tips
Lots of sellers, forwarder shipping agent may wonder how to fill phone and contact person on the waybill because Amazon FBA doesn’t offer any assistance for logistics and customs clearance. Indeed, Amazon FBA warehouse only offers a window which is a machine does not have any communication skills, but the international courier waybill need to fill the contact person and phone of the consignee, hence the destination country customs contact Amazon regularly for the customs clearance issues and even ask Amazon to pay for the tariffs. There has very limited channel for Amazon seller to communicate with the local courier, customs clearance person and customs officer, thus it will often cause irreparable damage for goods shipping from China to Amazon FBA warehouse. What should they do to avoid this trouble?
Here we can dismantle all the information in the waybill and invoice repetitively, it cannot exempt all the risks, but at least avoid general issues.
1. SHIPPER/EXPORTER/FROM
It’s easy to understand, it requires the shipper information and where the goods shipping from. But the shipper will be adjusted according to the different demands in the actual operation during goods shipping from China. Among the demands some are normal, while some are detrimental to the interests of Amazon sellers.
For example, when we shipping goods from China to Amazon FBA EU warehouse via air freight or sea, the first step is shipping goods from China to Amazon Germany warehouse, the shipper can be Amazon seller and forwarder shipping agent. It doesn’t matter; in order to save time usually the forwarder shipping agent will fill their contact person and phone. Once the goods being sorted out in Amazon Germany warehouse, the second step is to ship to other EU countries, then the shipper is Amazon company and it is rational and easy to understand.
If Amazon seller shipping goods from China via international courier service like UPS, DHL, FedEx and TNT directly, usually they need to register account on the official website of the international express delivery company. There are two kinds of accounts, one is trading account another one is agent account.
The trading account refers to regular goods shipping account released by the international courier service which is dedicated to the factories, trade exporters, cross border ecommerce company etc., it only allows traders to ship their own goods from China to overseas countries in principle. The international courier company like those kind of end customers very much, and the shipping discount is relatively high with very good customer service. Usually the forwarder shipping agent won’t give the waybill to the Amazon seller if they shipping goods from China to Amazon FBA via the trading account because there has the account information on the waybill which is risky for the trading account.
The Agent account refers to cargo shipping account released by the international courier service for its affiliate logistics companies. It can ship variety of kinds of goods from China. The account belongs to forwarder shipping agent instead of the goods owner. In order to monopolize the international express delivery market, the international express delivery company has very strict control on those agent accounts to grasp customers in their own hands, the shipping discount isn’t high enough to encourage trading accounts and compress the profits space of the agents.
Hence, if the forwarder shipping agent helps you shipping goods from China to Amazon FBA warehouse via trading account, the shipper should be the trading account owner instead of the Amazon seller, then the goods owner isn’t the seller. Your goods ownership belongs to someone else at the legal level.
2. SHIP TO/CONSIGNEE
There is no doubt the consignee is Amazon FBA and address is Amazon warehouse if goods shipping from China to Amazon FBA warehouse. However, international courier company prescribed consignee must fill in phone numbers and contacts, while Amazon does not provide any relevant information in addition to receipt. We highly suggest Amazon sellers fill the phone and contact person of the customs clearance agent. The customs clearance agent can easily deal with the inquirer by local customs. When shipping goods from China, the forwarder shipping agent will help you contact a customs clearance company.
3. SOLD TO/NOTIFY PARTY/INVOICE ADDRESS
The information indicates who own the goods; it refers to the ownership and responsibilities of the goods. The customs cares the most on these information such as who the goods belongs to? Does it have the import and export rights? Did they pay the tax? Then a series of questions came out. From a legal point of view Amazon FBA is a storage warehouse and it has no ownership of goods under normal circumstance. The cargo owner is the Amazon seller which should be formal business and has the import and export rights. Mostly Amazon sellers don’t have the rights and it is the biggest weakness of them. Then it is time to show the value of the forwarder shipping agent which offers customs clearance service. The forwarder shipping agent should find a formal local company which as import and export rights to import the goods on behalf of the Amazon seller. Then the forwarder shipping agent becomes the owner of the goods, and let these goods are eligible to enter the local market.
Then the importer information is simple. If the Amazon seller has import rights then certainly it is legitimate to fill the seller information. If the forwarder shipping agent offers custom clearance service, it should fill the local company information which has rights to import and export. It also needs to fill the contact person email and phone on the Amazon receipt address area for safe sake.
4. Goods value and invoice amount
Lots for people asked how to fill goods declare value frequently especially CFS to door custom clearance clients. In fact it doesn’t have strictly formula or algorithms, only based on custom clearance experience. We can introduce some skills but we do not want clients tangle of how to fill the declare value of goods.
We suggest most of our clients fill the declare 20% to 50% of goods sales value or 30% to 60% of goods purchasing value, every kinds of cargo have different add value and gross profits, we cannot guarantee it makes sense 100%.
If the destination country customs think the goods declare value is too low, they will re-verify the value of the goods and we do not have any rights to argue and negotiate with. And the final approved value will be higher than your declare value, it also brings a negative credit to the importer.
Usually big clients are not entangled in the pre-paid import VAT; they intend to declare a relatively big value of the goods in order to avoid subsequent tax. Why? The import VAT is paid in advance, the final approved VAT is according to the goods value in the country, so it can be deductible and tax rebate.
Don’t think you can ship goods from China to Amazon FBA warehouse on large scale after knowing the circumstance. We should always give top priority to the safety of goods shipping from China to Amazon FBA and provide neat clear shipping documents as well as real shipping information. Please feel free to leave your feedbacks if you have any questions.
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