We assume you are starting from the point of having sourced your supplier you are happy with what they are selling you and a price has been agreed upon (being a freight company K&L Freight cannot help you with sourcing your products from China or other markets we serve such as India and the USA). The next step will be to work out all your costs so you will need your freight costs to do this. How much does freight cost is an easy question, but the reality is that in order to answer we need quite a bit of information, specifically: Collection address Delivery address Number of cartons Sizes ..read more

It is over six years now since we voted to leave the EU and we left the EU customs union on the 31st of December 2020. Up until the end of 2020 sending a shipment to an EU country was a very straightforward process and in many ways, it was the same as arranging delivery in the UK – this was the whole point of the customs union, to create one huge domestic market. The current shipping situation As we have now left the customs union, it means that to send goods to the EU, an export customs entry is needed in order for customs permission to be granted to leave the UK and similarly, an import cust ..read more

Here at K&L freight we are now constantly being asked ‘ how do I cope with importing from China now that sterling has now collapsed?’ Aside from the fact that sterling has recovered – at least partly – against the dollar and let’s hope it stays that way, there are other factors that come into play when sourcing goods from China. The immediate reaction from some of our customers to the sterling’s collapse has been to attempt to persuade their Chinese supplier to sell to them in Sterling. All we can say is that you will be very lucky indeed to get a Chinese supplier to agree to this. Chinese ..read more

As HM Revenue has extensively publicised, their mainframe customs entry IT system. CHIEF, will close for all import customs entries nationally on 30 September 2022 as the system is over 25 years old and has reached the end of its life. CDS Import Software The new Customs system that replaces it is named CDS; it is already up and running. Many of the changes that CDS bring are behind the scenes. It brings much more complication and is a much more comprehensive solution than CHIEF, which was limited by its 1990s software. From a user perspective, the CDS system gives much more functionality than ..read more

Strike Action At Felixstowe As you may have probably already heard, there is a threat of strike action at Felixstowe container port in the UK. Felixstowe is the UK’s largest container port and handles around 40% of the UK’s container trade. The strike is due to start on Sunday 21 August and finish on Monday the 29 August. As we come closer to the start date of the strike it is becoming increasingly clear even though negotiations are continuing that there is a very high likelihood that the strike will take place Shipping Delays Likely Some ships are already being routed away from Felixstowe tho ..read more

The recent COVID outbreak is causing real problems for international trade and transport from and to China at the present time. Whilst COVID cases are very low compared to the numbers that are accepted in Europe and America, the Chinese policy of a zero case target is causing the world of trade some serious issues. It seems the epicentre of the current outbreak is the Shanghai area, but this is not the only part of China affected. There are shutdowns too in Beijing and the northeast province. Also affected is the huge Pearl Delta area incorporating the massive Shenzhen manufacturing area with ..read more

You will have most probably read or seen on TV that it has been a tough time importing into the UK this autumn, as neatly and accurately explained in the following BBC news article – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58904567 What we are sure you will want to know is if the situation is still bad, worse, or hopefully getting better! The good news is that things are improving, though rather slower than we would like, and this seems to be down to a slightly reduced demand for container services worldwide, rather than any additional capacity being available, with just about every ship worldwide ..read more

It looks like being another challenging month in the world of international freight and container shipping from China especially. Demand continues to exceed supply and this means there is a shortage of both ship capacity and also containers to load on ships.  COVID restrictions also mean that many ports are operating at around 80% capacity. This means a perfect storm has developed. This situation will only ease when there is more capacity in the market, principally by the building of new ships and also containers, a project which is ongoing and in the case of ship especially, a long term ..read more

As you may have read in the BBC news website, The Times and other mainstream media  the cost of container shipping from China to the UK and also the rest of Europe as well as the USA has steadily risen from last November and continued through 2021. Why are prices increasing so much and are we going to reach a peak?  We are hearing that due to western economies coming out of lockdown, demand is up 29%, but all container ships are in service and furthermore the supply of containers can only be increased at 8% per year due to limitations of production in China. With demand constantly ou ..read more

From December 2020 there has been a surge in container shipping demand that has affected all trade lanes worldwide to a large extent. We are still passing through a perfect storm of ships initially taken out of service at the start of the pandemic for refurbishment and container orders cancelled as the expectation was that Covid would cause the market to collapse. The reality was the opposite with the majority of people still working, many from home and with a lot of new disposable income due to a lack of commuting, holidays & socializing costs that they would normally spend a lot of money ..read more