When shipping to the US or from the US it can be challenging…if you don’t have the right partners in place. At Westwind Group we have more clients asking about shipping from a foreign market to the US than the reverse (as more companies outside the US are familiar with local import rules and would rather do that themselves). We come across this all of the time the questions that we need answered before we can give our client a quote about their order. Barring any issues with the likes of the FDA or CBP shipments can be very easy if you can answer these 7 basic questions shipping questions at the beginning.
- HTS Code(s) (Harmonized Tariff): Know the HS, or HTS codes before you are ready to ship. If you don’t know the code for your product please look that up, we can do that for you but you know your product the best.
- INCOTERM: you would like to use (EXW, FOB, CIF) we will quote from that to our warehouse in West Florida
- Size of product (box, pallet or container)
- Weight (approx)
- Value of shipment: this is important
- Shipping location: if other than our warehouse where do you want it sent
- Time of Shipping (Month): believe it or not if you choose to ship to the US in say September you might get a higher rate than say January or even December. The rush to get Christmas goods in warehouses during the September months is important and you pay a higher price for it.
- FDA processing needed: if you product HS code meets the requirement as FDA then it needs to clear (and has never done so before) your facility in the country of origin needs to be checked and approved before they will release your shipment to the US market. If you are shipping a box, probably not as much but if you ship a container of product then
Let us know if you have other questions that we should include. Would love to add them to this list.
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