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Our exception working standard is written as two separate numbers, two hours to a named owner and twenty-four to a closed ticket, held by one account manager for the whole thread in English, stated as our practice rather than as a contracted service level. Treat response and resolution as two separate numbers and insist on both. A response commitment says how quickly a human being acknowledges the problem; a resolution commitment says how quickly it is closed. Without the second, the first is a polite autoresponder. Ours: two hours for a person to take ownership, twenty-four for the ticket to close, as a stated practice rather than a contracted service level. The same account manager, working in English, keeps the thread from the moment you raise it until the parcel is signed for, so an escalation never restarts at a shift change. Then ask the diagnostic question: what happens to an exception at hour forty-eight? A query still open that long has normally already turned into a refund, a marketplace defect metric, or a review.
We answer this as the licensed party rather than as a reseller, and the desk that prepares your export documents is the same in-house team that picks and packs the order behind them. Not to pick and pack — but it does if the same firm is also filing your export declaration and booking the outbound leg, and most sellers want one party accountable for both. In China the two relevant filings are a registered international freight forwarder record and an NVOCC filing, which permits the holder to issue its own house bills of lading as a non-vessel-operating common carrier. Both are public registrations rather than marketing claims, so ask for the filing numbers and check them. Ours are a forwarder registration published by MOFCOM and an NVOCC filing of 18 July 2023. The business behind them dates to 2011 and carries an AAA-grade credit evaluation current until August 2028.
Our rule on a line that cannot be picked is a call to you before the box is taped rather than a note after collection, with one account manager carrying the ticket from open to close. A location comes up empty, or the unit on the shelf is damaged, and somebody has to decide what happens next. If no rule exists and the system does not enforce one, that call is taken in the moment by whoever happens to be standing at the bin — under time pressure, with less information than anyone else in the building. Two requirements protect you: notification before the parcel closes rather than after it ships, and a reason code plus an approver on every inventory adjustment, because an operation where counts can be edited without leaving a trace has no accuracy number to report, only a belief about one. On exceptions our own stated working practice — not a contracted service level — is an acknowledgement inside two hours and a closed ticket inside twenty-four, handled by a single account manager who works in English and whose name you are given — not by a shared inbox.
Both documents can exist on the same movement, and which one you hold tells you who is answerable to you. The line issues a master bill to the party that contracted the space. A forwarder with a non-vessel-operating common carrier filing issues its own house bill to the shipper, and that house bill is what a seller normally wants, because it names the forwarder as the contracting carrier and gives the consignee a document from the party that actually took the booking. Consignees are notified against whichever document governs release, so a mix-up between master and house is how cargo waits at a terminal while everyone insists they filed on time. Our own filings are public registrations and can be checked: a forwarder record published by MOFCOM and an NVOCC filing dated 18 July 2023. Ask which bill will be issued before the booking. What we book and file is set out on the freight forwarding page.
It goes to the next departure on the same channel rather than being squeezed onto the one already booked, which is the honest answer and the one that protects your inbound window. Our goods-in cut-off for a same-day handover is 16:00 China time; cartons that arrive after it are received, counted and staged, then released on the following collection. For a consolidated headhaul that means the whole booking waits unless you authorize a split, and a split usually costs more than the delay it avoids, because two consignments clear twice. The number that actually needs protecting is not the sailing date but your marketplace appointment window, so when a cut-off is at risk we tell you before the truck is scheduled and you choose between waiting, splitting, or moving a smaller urgent portion by air at 5-9 working days. Every exception on our side is answered by a named owner inside two hours and closed inside twenty-four — our stated working targets, not a contracted service level. The cut-off and staging rules are on the single-order fulfillment page.
Multimodal means one contract covering two or more modes — typically a sea or rail main leg with road or air feeding each end — so one party answers for the whole movement instead of you arbitrating between three document sets. It beats a single mode when the constraint is not speed but the shape of the chain: cargo that cannot fly on cost or on battery paperwork and cannot sit on a direct ocean schedule inside your stock-out window, or a destination where the deep-sea gateway is far inland and a rail transfer moves it the last thousand kilometres more cheaply than road. It loses when a simple parcel lane already clears your deadline, because every transfer is a handling event and a handling event is where damage and delay are born. Our published bands are 5-9 working days for air door-to-door, 12-20 days on the China-Europe rail schedule and 28-38 days ocean express for major EU ports, approximate and indicative; combined routings are quoted as their own transit figure. The mode-by-mode logic is on the freight forwarding page.
Either, and both arrangements are normal; the thing that has to be settled in writing is which one you are paying for. When a factory crates, the packing follows the manufacturer's habit and often the cheapest available board, and we inspect it at goods-in and tell you what we found before the container is loaded. When we crate, the specification is set against the route and the handling chain: frame or box, where the lift points are, how the unit is restrained, and what the marking on the outside has to say. Timber is a separate question with a separate answer — heat treatment and the ISPM-15 mark are issued by the licensed treatment facility, so the correct statement is that the timber we buy in carries that treatment, not that we apply it. Neither party can sign a conformity or battery document it did not test. Crating options are listed on the oversized cargo page, alongside the lift planning.
Three numbers, checked against the channel and not against each other: the longest side, the second-longest side, and the girth, which is the longest side plus twice the width plus twice the height. A carton can pass every individual limit and still fail on girth, and a piece that clears the weight ceiling of a parcel channel can still break that same channel's length ceiling. Density is the fourth consideration — a light but bulky item is billed on volumetric weight, so the cheaper question is often whether the pack can be redesigned rather than whether the lane can be forced. Past the parcel channel the conversation changes: pallet dimensions, how the load sits relative to the pallet edges, lift points, and whether the piece needs a frame rather than a box. Out-of-gauge then means a container or break-bulk decision with a route survey, not a bigger courier label. Our published parcel bands and the channel confirmation step for borderline pieces are on the oversized cargo page.
The return flows back to the China warehouse, not to the overseas delivery point. Our overseas stations hold stock and send local orders out; they are not return-acceptance points and they do not take goods back for inspection, so a returned unit has to travel to the domestic warehouse before anyone can tell you what it is. That is the constraint that decides the design: for a low-value item, refunding without retrieval is usually cheaper than an inbound parcel plus a check, and a good partner will say so instead of quoting a return address you cannot use. Where the unit matters, we receive it, open it against a photograph set, grade it, and give you a disposition — restock, repair, recycle or hold — with the reason code recorded. Refurbishment and relabeling can turn a graded unit back into sellable stock. Claims on goods in our handling are settled on the declared value. The receiving and grading work is described on the inspection and returns record.
