Shipping From China To UAE: Cheap Freight Forwarder Trap
Not long ago, Mr. Lu was shipping from China to UAE. The cargo was a batch of LED live-stream fill lights. The value was not low, and his customer was waiting for restock. Time was very tight. At first, the freight forwarder kept quiet. Later, they said the destination customs checked the shipment and found undeclared lithium batteries in the same batch. The whole shipment was held.
Mr. Lu was confused at first. I sent fill lights. The battery documents were all there. How could they be undeclared? Later he found out the problem was not him. That forwarder, just to make more money, secretly added another customer's goods with lithium batteries. They thought some were declared and some were not, so it would be hard to catch. But customs caught it. What a move. Thanks a lot, really.
Mr. Lu chose that forwarder for one simple reason: low price. Looking back, the trick was right there. Buyers are no match for sellers. A low price always has a low-price catch. You can rack your brain and still not guess what sneaky moves a forwarder may pull. You only understand after it happens, and regret comes too late. One or two shipments may arrive safely if you are lucky. But who can promise eight or ten shipments will all be lucky? One accident, one customs check, or one cargo problem, and the little freight money you saved is far from enough to cover the loss. Air freight time is strict too. If the cargo is held, the customer runs out of stock. The loss is not just freight. It is a classic case of picking up a sesame seed and losing a watermelon.
The tricks are all over the place. If you rely on yourself to prevent them, it is like carrying water with a bamboo basket. It won't work. So what do you do? The only way is to trust your cargo to a proper freight forwarder. But everyone talks big. We cannot see a forwarder's past shipments either. What kind of forwarder is proper? Simple: pick a big one. You won't go wrong. For Middle East air freight, the bigger the forwarder, the more reliable it usually is.
This is easy to understand. First, a big freight forwarder got big by doing honest business, moving a lot of cargo, playing it straight, and building customer trust bit by bit. Second, when a company gets big, it must have real rules. Quotes, handling, documents, and so on all follow company rules. Every customer gets treated the same. It is not like a small forwarder with three or five people, where the boss calls all the shots. If the boss smells profit in an order, he may go down a crooked road.
Take DL as an example. We were founded in 1998. We are a 28-year-old freight forwarder. We now have nearly 100 employees. The whole 8th floor of Tower B, Rongde Times Plaza, Longgang District, Shenzhen is our company. It is not rented. We bought it. Our assets are over 100 million RMB. We are a top-tier large freight forwarder. Many of our customers are big companies. We once shipped 40 million RMB worth of electronics for Huawei. A big company like that does not pick a forwarder randomly. They visit the company, sign an agreement, and do a background check, including whether there are big lawsuits. If Huawei accepts a forwarder, you know it is reliable, right?
Back to Mr. Lu's shipment. For shipping from China to UAE, finding a forwarder at origin is only one part. The customs broker at the destination is even more important. Many small forwarders take the cargo but have no destination customs team. They just hand it to a local agent. We don't do that. Our customs and delivery team in the UAE has more than 20 years of service experience and over 100 employees. We are well known locally too. More importantly, if it is a sensitive product by Middle East air freight and customs checks it, we have channels to talk with customs. That can shorten the inspection time. Others may need two or three days. We can finish the check and pick up the cargo the same day. Air freight time is very strict. Many customers cannot wait even one more day. So one or two days earlier may sound small, but for many customers it is critical.
For shipping from China to UAE, don't just compare prices. Is the forwarder some random guy on the street or a real large forwarder? You need sharp eyes to see it clearly.