Oversized Cargo From China: Crating Frames, Lift Plans and How a Load Gets Booked

Oversized is a shape problem before it becomes a weight problem

Sellers usually discover that a shipment has left the parcel world at the goods-in door, when a driver hands over something no sorter can swallow. The cleaner test is three measurements and one footprint. Longest side. Weight of the heaviest single piece. Girth, which is the longest side plus twice the width plus twice the height. Then the question nobody asks until a crate sits on a dock: can a forklift put this down without any part of it hanging over a ledge? A lane is a published envelope, not a suggestion, and once a carton crosses that envelope the shipment stops being a rate card line and becomes a booking somebody has to look at.

We would rather have those three figures and a photograph before we quote than after a rejected pickup. If you only know one of them, tell us which one you know and we will work from there, because the answer to "can this go" is almost never about the item — it is about the box you chose around the item.

Two weights, and the number on your invoice

A chargeable figure is the larger of what a scale reads and what a volume reads, and the volume side of that comparison uses a divisor that changes with the mode and the channel you land on. Two quotes can therefore disagree by a third while both being arithmetically honest: one used an air basis, the other a parcel basis, and neither told you. When you compare operators on a bulky piece, ask which basis produced the weight on the line and have it written down. The worked explanation of that arithmetic is on our own page about chargeable weight and volumetric divisors, and we will show you the same calculation for your carton rather than asking you to take the result on trust.

Crating: built by us, or delivered already built

There are two legitimate routes into a crate and we run both, because which one is cheaper depends entirely on where the timber is. Some senders have their own crate shop near the factory and bring us a finished box. Others arrive with a machine on a skid and no packing at all, and the frame gets designed and built here.

What should be true of either crate, whoever made it: a base a forklift can enter from two sides, lashing points that exist as steel rather than as a hope, the center of gravity marked on the outside so a handler is not guessing, and a barrier against salt and condensation on anything crossing water. Marking is a separate matter from building. The ISPM-15 treatment and the stamp that proves it belong to a licensed facility, and we specify the timber and verify the mark but we do not sign somebody else's fumigation certificate — the six questions to ask before a crate is built are set out in our ISPM-15 page. If a delivered crate is not fit to travel, we will say so before it reaches a container, not from a photograph of a damaged load three weeks later.

The lift is a document, not a moment

A piece can be crateable and still be unmovable. Somewhere between our floor and your receiving door there is a step nobody planned for: a yard with no turning radius, a tail-lift that cannot reach a fifth-storey loading bay, a road segment that needs an escort, a warehouse whose beam is rated below your machine. So the plan gets written before the crate is closed, and it answers the same five questions every time — heaviest single piece, which end supplies the gear, whether the gear can physically reach the position, who books the escort, and what happens if weather moves the appointment. The document chain behind that, including who actually issues road permits, is in project cargo as a document chain; we manage the plan and the handovers, and permits remain with the authority that grants them.

How a bulky load then gets booked

Container stowage, flat racks, break-bulk and air nose-loading are different answers to the same shape, and the right one depends on dimensions you have already sent us. A load that fits a 20’foot box without protruding is a routine booking; one that projects past a frame is a survey before it is anything else, and it belongs in the conversation described in out-of-gauge container freight. Consolidation and reinforcement happen on our own floor, in the same buildings where the goods arrive — 24,000 m2 spread over three linked Chinese sites, with this desk running since 2011 across more than 50 channels, so one carrier having a bad quarter is not the same event as us having one.

We do not publish an oversized rate card. A bulky shipment is priced per movement, because density, destination access and the season you book in move that number further than any table can hold. Every transit figure we give you is approximate and indicative — capacity available in the week of booking, routing, season and customs conditions are the real variables, and we say it in the body of the email rather than in a footnote.

Terms, value and the awkward categories

Incoterms available on this kind of movement are EXW, FCA, DAP and DDP, and the choice changes who signs for the import, so it is worth deciding deliberately. Cargo insurance is arranged on your behalf rather than sold as our own product: the premium appears as a separate figure worked off the value you put on the goods, while the cover, its excess and its exclusions stay the underwriter's. Should anything be lost, compensation is calculated from that figure — one more reason to declare it properly. Semi-sensitive and regulated goods — blades, dietary supplements, children's toys — move only subject to channel confirmation; we will tell you which channel we checked and when.

Send these six things and we can answer in one pass

• Dimensions and weight of every piece, not the aggregate.
• A photograph of the item standing on its intended base.
• Whether a crate is arriving to us or needs building here.
• Destination access: floor, dock type, lifting gear available, booking rules.
• Which Incoterm you want to land on, and who is the importer on your side.
• Your target in-market date, so we can tell you honestly whether a lane meets it.

Write to tonyfulfill@gmail.com with those six and we will come back with a movement priced as its own line, the crate route we recommend, and the lift plan's open questions named before anything is built. Country pages carrying our published transit bands start at China to United States, and the Netherlands lane we opened this month is at China to Netherlands.