How to Import from China: A Seven-Step Checklist for First-Time Importers
A seven-step walkthrough for importers buying container loads from China: spec sheets, supplier vetting, Incoterms, compliance, payment terms, realistic shipping timelines and customs clearance — including the mistakes that cost the most money.
Importing from China rewards preparation. The buyers who lose money are rarely the ones who overpaid — they are the ones who booked the container before agreeing what “acceptable” means. This guide walks through the seven steps that decide whether a first order lands well, written for importers, distributors and wholesalers buying full container loads under general trade terms.
Who this guide is for
This is written for buyers importing finished consumer goods — pet supplies, home and garden lines, general merchandise — usually in quantities that justify a full container. If you sell through marketplaces and ship single parcels to end consumers, most of what follows does not apply to you.
Step 1: Write the spec before you write to anyone
The most useful hour you can spend before contacting suppliers is writing a spec sheet: material, dimensions, unit weight, colour reference (Pantone if colour matters), retail packing, units per carton, cartons per pallet, and — just as important — what you will not accept. Suppliers quote against documents, not intentions. When two quotes differ by 20%, you are usually looking at two different products.
A practical test: ask for the export carton dimensions. If your counterpart cannot answer without checking, they have not produced this item before — they have only seen it.
Step 2: Choose a partner you can audit
There is a real difference between a factory and a trading company, and either can be the right answer. A factory gives you cost control and process knowledge. A trading company gives you product range, consolidation across several mills, and someone accountable when something goes wrong on a Sunday before your deadline.
What matters most is whether whoever you buy from can answer three questions immediately: which mill produced your last three equivalent orders, whose name holds the certifications, and what the actual procedure is when a batch fails inspection. Vagueness about any one of those is itself the answer. We have published our own routine in How We Vet a Factory Before the First Order.
Step 3: Fix your Incoterms before comparing prices
A price without an Incoterm attached is not a quotation, it is a rumour. These are the three you will meet most often:
- FOB (Free on Board) — you take ownership and risk once goods pass the ship’s rail at the named Chinese port. You control the freight, so you control the cost and the schedule.
- CIF — the supplier pays freight and insurance to your port. Convenient, but you inherit whatever freight rate they negotiated.
- DDP — the supplier handles everything to your door including import formalities. Highest unit price, fewest moving parts for your team.
Compare FOB against FOB. Mixing terms is how experienced buyers accidentally convince themselves they found a bargain.
Step 4: Sort compliance at the start, not at customs
Compliance is not paperwork you add at the end — it changes how the product gets made. Depending on your market and category this may mean REACH registration, EN71 toy safety testing, CE marking or food-contact declarations, and each carries a lead time measured in weeks.
State your destination market in the first email. A factory that learns you sell into the EU three weeks before shipment cannot rescue you. For European buyers we keep the full paperwork list in Importing Goods into the EU: The Documents You Need.
Step 5: Payment terms that protect both sides
The common structure is a 30% deposit with the balance paid against a copy of the bill of lading; larger or first-time orders often run through a letter of credit instead. Whatever you agree, tie milestones to documents or inspection results — never to calendar dates alone. Dates slip for reasons nobody controls, and a trigger tied to a passing inspection still protects you when they do.
Step 6: Book realistic timelines
For most finished consumer goods, expect 15–25 days from deposit to container departure once production is scheduled, plus transit. Add a buffer if your plan crosses the Spring Festival — factories close, and they close completely.
Below roughly 15 cubic metres, LCL shipping looks cheaper per booking but catches up with you through handling fees, consolidation delays and damage. Above about 20 cubic metres, a full container is usually cheaper per unit and arrives in far better condition.
Compare FOB to FOB. Most “cheaper” quotes are just a different Incoterm wearing a friendlier price tag.
— Linkaris export team, Qingdao
Step 7: Clear customs before the container arrives
Get the import side settled early: HS classification, your EORI number if you are importing into the EU, duty and VAT exposure, and any licence your category requires. Your broker will need the commercial invoice, packing list, bill of lading and certificate of origin — have drafts reviewed before the vessel sails, not after it berths.
The most common avoidable cost at this stage is demurrage: storage charges that start the moment your container sits at the port because documents were not ready. It is measured in hundreds per day, and it is entirely preventable.
The mistakes that cost importers the most
- Approving a golden sample and assuming the bulk run matches it. Ask for a production sample pulled from the actual batch.
- Skipping pre-shipment inspection to save a few hundred dollars on a twenty-thousand-dollar order.
- Treating packaging as an afterthought. Retail-ready packing shapes your shelf economics more than a cent of unit price does.
- Sending the first deposit before the second quotation arrives. Quotes are free; leverage was expensive to earn.
Where to start this week
None of this is complicated, it is simply sequential. Buyers who follow the sequence — spec, partner, terms, compliance, payment, timing, customs — tend to describe importing as boring, which is exactly what you want a supply chain to be.
If you are weighing up a category now, the fastest next step is a defined spec against two or three named mills rather than another round of generic enquiries. Send us your spec and target port, and we will tell you what is realistic to produce, what it should cost landed, and which certifications apply before you commit.
