At Wavecrest Limited  we have many year’s experience of advising clients new to importing and international trade.

Over the next few weeks we will be writing a series of articles on our blog which we hope you will find helpful and informative.

Our first helpful tip: - Do not forget to do your market research before commiting to buy goods from an overseas supplier.

We are contacted on an almost daily basis by clients, new to importing, advising us that they have found a “new” product for the UK market on the web, or they can source XYZ product at a particularly low price in the Far East and are going to make a killing.

Finding a supplier on the web is the easy part but only half the story!

Have you considered the following questions?

Is anybody else already selling the same product in the UK? - we’ve probably lost count of the number of clients who were going to be the first to import mobile phone accessories, bathroom fittings, electric scooters etc

Are you actually allowed to import the product into the UK? - for example does the product comply with UK safety standards?  Do you need an import licence?

What is the duty rate applicable? - for some products very high tariffs remain in place and even anti dumping duties which make the landed price no cheaper or indeed even more expensive than home produced goods. (We will go into duty rates in more detail on a later post)

Is the product suitable for  the UK market? - we had a client that imported very good quality flooring materials from North America but found to his cost that the particular colours he had chosen , although popular in the USA, were not to the UK buyers taste and did not sell.

Who will you sell your products to? - we have had more than one clients that has imported a container of “cheap” goods and waited until it arrived in the UK before even attempting to find buyers. Needless to say the stock remained in storage unsold for many months.

We hope the above will give you some food for thought when planning your import business. Please look out for our next helpful tip which will focus on terms of sale and contracts.

If you would like any assistance with your import shipping requirements, please feel free to contact Wavecrest Ltd at any time.

Tel: 01474 331146, E-mail: glen@wavecrest.co.uk

Do not forget to subscribe to this blogs RSS feed!

Wavecrest Ltd has been handling the customs clearance of import shipments at all UK ports since our establishment in 1994.

We pride ourselves on providing a competitively priced, efficient and friendly service to all our import customers both old and new.

For those new to importing, we are happy to offer advice and guidance to ensure all runs smoothly with your first import shipments.

In the last year or so, it has come to our notice that a number of our competitors (no names mentioned!) have been taking advantage of the first time importer’s lack of experience by charging very high rates for customs clearance and other services.

Several of them have automated switch boards which direct calls from new/private importers to a different department from their regular commercial clients. If this happens to you, please beware. You are very likely to be charged considerably more for the same customs clearance service as one of their commercial clients!

A number of our competitors will imply that you are obliged to use their service for customs clearance and delivery because they are shown as the release agent on the bill of lading - THIS IS NOT THE CASE - you are free to appoint an agent such as Wavecrest Ltd to handle the clearance and delivery on your behalf.

If you would like further information or a quotation for customs clearance at any UK port or airport, please contact Wavecrest ltd on Tel: 0870 720 1130, or e-mail glen@wavecrest.co.uk

Do not forget to subscribe to this blogs RSS feed!

 We were contacted by a gentleman earlier this week about a car he had purchased on the net from an overseas car broker - or so he thought….

The car was advertised for sale in good condition and at a favourable price. The broker had included shipping to the UK in the price and to give the buyer even greater  ” peace of mind ” the purchase price was paid into an escrow account.

As per the terms of the sales contract with the broker, if the buyer was not happy with the car when it arrived in the UK, he could refuse it and would be refunded in full. The broker would pay for the car to be returned back to the country of origin at his expense.

The gentleman in the UK duly transfered funds for the vehicle to the overseas broker who then helpfully supplied a ” tracking number ” on his web site to show the progress of the shipping.

After some time past the gentleman in the UK checked the broker’s web site and lo and behold the car had arrived at Dover and was awaiting Customs clearance.

Having searched the web for a customs clearance agent, the gentleman decided to contact Wavecrest Limited as we do indeed provide a service at Dover - as well as all other main UK ports and airports.

The gentleman explained the circumstances of the car purchase and  this is when we began to smell a rat…..

The car had supposedly been shipped from Cyprus to Dover but from our many year’s experience in the trade we know that vessels from Cyprus arrive at ports such as Tilbury, Southampton, Liverpool or Bristol but NOT Dover!

The broker had not supplied any shipping documentation such as a bill of lading or waybill - just the tracking number.

The only telephone numbers shown on the broker’s web site were non geographic in the UK or overseas.

The “sales contract” was littered with spelling mistakes and had no company address, telephone numbers, VAT numbers, registration numbers etc shown.

The whole thing is a scam and the gentleman in the UK is several thousand pounds lighter in the pocket but no doubt wiser!

Remember the age old saying - if it seems too good to be true it probably is !

Do not forget to subscribe to this blogs RSS feed!

Do not forget to subscribe to this blogs RSS feed!