How is Coronavirus Affecting K&L Freight Operations?
We are being asked by many of our customers how the Covid19 Coronavirus is affecting operations at K&L Freight and the wider international transport industry.
We can advise the following:
Sea Freight
Sea freight services are not directly affected by the virus, ships, ports and local transport; for both full load and part load deliveries and collections are operating more or less normally.
Supply chain review from importing by air from China
Air Freight From China Challenge
The Challenge was to simplify a customers’ supply chain that had grown without any focus on the planning of how orders are sent from China.
We find this often happens with companies that set up and then have rapidly expanded.
The company’s initial emphasis is quite rightly on sales and growing the business. It’s only when the growth curve settles a little and the business matures do minds turn to procedures and processes needed to make a business more efficient to facilitate the next phase of growth.
Anti-Dumping Duty
What is anti-dumping duty?
First of all a bit of background. If you have ever imported at all from outside of Europe or countries with free trade agreements you will be familiar with the concept of paying duty to Customs and that it is a cost of doing business. You will probably know that most industrial items have a duty rate of between zero to a few percent for most items with other items a bit more.
Incoterms: All You Need To Know
Terms of sale, properly know as ‘Incoterms ‘ are published by the International Chamber of Commerce and are widely recognised in law, worldwide. In this article we answer the question what does ‘incoterm’ mean in shipping?
See more about the different types of incoterm and feel free to get in touch with K&L freight if you have any questions about Incoterms or any shipping and freight queries.
A Guide To Import Tax
If you are importing into the UK you will want to know what tax you are going to be charged by customs.
Firstly it is important to note there are two types of tax which are quite different and are best treated separately. Import duty is a tax that cannot normally be refunded. Import VAT on the other hand is normally refunded some time after import as detailed below.
Import Duty
All goods that are imported into the UK are classified using what is called a commodity code or HS code which is a ten digit number.
Trading With The USA
The United States and the United Kingdom have always been major trading partners and most probably always will be, especially if we sign a USA/UK free trade agreement. If is often said that that the UK and the USA are two quite different countries that share a common language and whilst this may be true there is a lot commercially and culturally that tie us together. As well as language, our tastes are broadly similar and so what sells well in the USA will most probably sell well in the UK and what sells in the UK will probably sell well in the USA.
Major Disruption in China – Coronavirus
*UPDATE
China closed for business to at least 10 February
The central government in China had advised that all businesses in mainland China except the Tianjin area, (the port city for Beijing) are to remain closed until 10 February.
As you may have heard the Chinese government have issued a instruction on the extension to Chinese New Year to avoid the movement of people to prevent the coronavirus spreading.
Importing Alibaba Products From China
Alibaba is classed as the Amazon of the Far East, only much cheaper – as it’s wholesale! With this is mind, many people across the UK are using the Alibaba website to source products, drop ship them to the UK and sell on Amazon UK, ebay or their own websites, or even all three.
This is a great way to cost effectively sell on line and make some money. However, there are some hidden costs to sourcing your products from Alibaba as we will explain below.
Buying From India
You will be pleased to know that buying and importing from India is rather more straightforward than you may expect.
Why Import From India?
Let’s assume you addressed the question ‘why import from India?’ and have sourced the product you want to buy and agreed payment terms with your supplier – so you are good to go.
Getting Freight From India
The next step is to consider the geography of India.
Buying From China
We are often asked about how to import from China to the UK?
As a freight company we think importing from China is straightforward, though of course we do this all day every day for a living!
Let’s assume you have found a profitable product to import from China, this may be from your own contacts or by visiting a trade fair, or you may even be importing from China to the UK sourcing from Alibaba.