Frequently asked questions

Sea cargo is priced per CBM and air per chargeable kilogram, and both are all-in: freight, fuel, customs duty, VAT and delivery in one number. Four cargo categories set the rate: general goods, branded or medical, cosmetics and food, batteries. Sourcing is a flat percentage of factory invoice value, disclosed up front.

Consolidated sea cargo is 35 to 45 days door to door. Air is 6 to 9 days to Dubai and Sharjah, 7 to 10 days to the other emirates and to Saudi Arabia.

UAE: 5 percent customs duty on most goods plus 5 percent VAT, free zone imports defer duty. KSA: 5 percent duty plus 15 percent VAT, with mandatory SABER conformity for almost all regulated products. We handle clearance under DDP terms or hand off cleanly to your broker under CIF.

DDP (Delivered Duty Paid) means we deliver goods to your door with duty, VAT and clearance already handled. CIF stops at the destination port and you handle clearance. FOB stops at the origin port and you arrange everything from there. DDP is the simplest for new importers but costs more per shipment.

Our sourcing fee is a transparent percentage of factory invoice value, agreed before we start. There are no hidden supplier kickbacks. If you already have a supplier, we can act as freight-only forwarder with no sourcing fee.

There is no hard MOQ for shipping. The smallest sea shipment is 1 CBM, the partner minimum. For air, anything from a few kilograms upwards. Sourcing assignments usually start from around $3,000 of factory value to be worth the coordination.

Standard terms are 50 percent on booking and 50 percent before vessel departure for freight, or 30/70 against pro-forma for sourcing. We accept bank transfer in USD, AED or SAR. We do not accept credit card or crypto for compliance reasons.

We check business licence and tax registration through Chinese government databases, visit the factory in person when the order size justifies the trip, and review export history. For larger orders we run a third-party audit through SGS, BV or Intertek.

Yes. We offer in-house quality checks at our Guangzhou and Yiwu warehouses, and we coordinate third-party inspections (AQL sampling, full container loading checks) through SGS, BV, TUV or Intertek. Inspection cost is quoted separately.

For damage in transit, we file the carrier claim and pursue recovery through cargo insurance if you took out a policy. For supplier defects, we negotiate replacement, repair or refund directly with the factory; this is one of the main reasons clients use a sourcing partner instead of buying direct.

English and Mandarin Chinese in writing and on calls. Arabic correspondence on request via our destination partners.

Monday to Friday, 09:00-19:00 Dubai time (GMT+4). Our team works from Shenzhen and Dubai, and client replies come on Dubai hours. Urgent shipment issues are covered outside hours by the on-call account owner.

In principle yes, but reverse logistics from GCC to China is expensive and slow. It is almost always better to negotiate a credit, replacement in the next shipment, or local discount. We help mediate that conversation.

Yes. We can apply Arabic-language labels, GCC barcodes, retail-ready packaging and pallet wrapping at our consolidation warehouse before export. This avoids costly relabelling at destination.

Yes for any shipment over a few thousand dollars. All-risk marine insurance is roughly 0.2 to 0.4 percent of CIF value and covers damage, loss and general average. We can arrange a policy alongside the booking.

Restricted lists vary by destination. Common UAE and KSA restrictions include weapons and replicas, narcotics, ivory and protected wildlife, pork-derived products, alcohol (KSA total ban, UAE licensed only), some pharmaceuticals, and uncertified electronics that fail SABER or ECAS. We screen products against the relevant list before booking.

We have direct lanes to UAE and Saudi Arabia today. Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain are served via partner consolidation through Jebel Ali, with direct lanes scheduled to launch later in 2026.