Dock to Available: What Happens Before Your China Stock Can Sell

A carton reaching a dock in China is not the same event as that carton becoming sellable, and the hours between the two decide whether a launch date holds. Sellers plan the transit estimate and treat arrival as the moment stock converts into orders; in fact a unit passes four states after the truck backs in, each owned by a different check. SBT FulfillDock, the trading name of Shenzhen Shibotong International Logistics Co., Ltd., operates from three Chinese sites covering 24,000 m2, so the distance from dock to shelf is scheduled rather than discovered.

Four states between the tail-lift and the sale

Say it as a table, because averaging these four into one lead time is how a seller ends up advertising stock it cannot pick.

Three of the four run inside working hours on the arrival day; the last is where a supplier causes trouble, because a short count means those units never reach state three. The only record that helps then is the photograph taken before the pallet was broken down.

What the goods-in count actually settles

The count is neither a formality nor a quality audit. It answers three narrow questions: does the quantity match the document, did the carton survive the domestic leg, and is what sits inside it sellable. Cartons are counted by SKU against the inbound list, shortfalls photographed as they are found, and anything failing the agreed standard quarantined and reported that day instead of shelved onto a rack.

That clause carries weight. A damaged unit put away as good becomes a complaint three weeks later, when nobody can say when the damage occurred; held at the dock, it keeps the conversation with the factory that packed it. So two claims here are boundary claims: incoming goods are not inspected abroad, and a per-SKU count at our Chinese docks shows quantity and outer condition, not workmanship.

When a count fails, the clock is ours: someone is named on the exception inside 2 hours and the ticket is closed inside 24, measured against our response rather than a supplier's reply.

Which dock, and why the shape of freight decides it

Availability starts at the right door: three sites, three jobs, split by how goods arrive.

• B2C parcels and dropshipping stock arrive at Dongguan, an 8,000 m2 floor built for unit-level handling.
• Palletised and crated B2B freight arrives at Shenzhen, where forklift access and a container door sit behind 3,000 m2 of working floor.
• A Yangtze-delta supplier is normally served from Suzhou, the largest at 13,000 m2, which consolidates several factories into one outbound set.

One boundary is easy to miss on a map: a Guangdong-departing channel takes Guangdong intake, even when the producing site is a half-day drive north. Moving cartons to a dock is itself a chargeable movement quoted against the factory's address, so it belongs on the plan as its own line rather than folded into a freight figure. Lane-by-lane detail is on the DDP freight service page.

From available to delivered: the clocks that follow

Two published rules take over once a unit is available. Orders received before 16:00 China time are picked, packed and released with a tracking reference that same working day; later orders join the next queue.

Transit is where a seller should hear numbers as bands and as estimates. Air DDP is estimated by channel - 4-6 working days express, 5-9 standard, 8-12 economy - and the lane behind a band is matched to packed size, weight and cell content rather than picked off a menu. Sea DDP windows are estimated at 18-25 days arriving on the US West Coast, 28-38 days into Europe. Carrier schedules, seasonal capacity, customs handling and terminal dwell move those figures; none is a delivery guarantee, and a delay caused by clearance or the carrier is not a compensable event.

A worked sequence, read backwards from a launch date

Read the sequence backwards from a launch date. Assume a small appliance line going live on a month's first Monday, bought from three suppliers, one inland. This is a structural example, not an offer: no figure here is a price.

1. Launch date minus a transit band. Air replenishment at an estimated 5-9 working days is ordered a fortnight out; the opening bulk quantity is a sea decision at an estimated 18-25 days to a US arrival.
2. Transit decision minus a booking window. Capacity is committed before a packing list exists, so this step chooses the channel, not the carton.
3. Booking minus production and delivery. The inland supplier needs to know which floor its goods land on, and collection - chargeable, priced against its address - is arranged before those dates.
4. Delivery day, then the count. Units are reconciled and photographed; the accepted subset becomes sellable. If it is smaller than the paperwork, the sellable number is smaller too.
5. Available, then committed. Stock in a location, order before 16:00, parcel out that evening.

Two days deserve protecting: the count day, the last day a supplier is answerable for the goods, and the day before a cut-off, because a promotion does not read the queue.

Frequently asked questions

How fast does stock become sellable after it arrives?

For a delivery that passes its count, availability is a same-day record: units are reconciled against the inbound list, the accepted subset goes to a location, and the sellable figure follows that put-away rather than the supplier's paperwork. A short or damaged line never becomes available inventory - it opens an exception, someone is named inside 2 hours and the ticket closes inside 24, and the quantity settles with the factory while the goods are still identifiable as theirs.

Can I ship straight from my supplier's address into a lane?

Not as a general rule, and this is a routing question rather than a pricing one. A lane departing Guangdong needs Guangdong intake, so goods made elsewhere must reach the right floor before a booking is useful: a Yangtze-delta supplier consolidates through Suzhou, B2C stock lands at Dongguan, pallets and crates at Shenzhen. Getting cartons there is itself chargeable - ask for it as its own line.

What paperwork has to exist before stock can sell in a market?

Nothing here replaces the rule that applies to your product. The boundary we can state is this: we prepare and lodge the customs declaration as the shipper's authorised agent, while certification and test documents keep the signature of the party owning them - a manufacturer for a UN 38.3 summary, a substance supplier for a safety data sheet, a licensed operator for an ISPM-15 treatment. Regulated categories ship subject to channel confirmation, so a compliance question is settled before cartons move rather than at the border; a market's own rules go to the contact page.

Every transit figure above is a planning estimate, not a delivery guarantee. Storage, stock and liability terms are on our liability and compensation page.

Reviewed 2026-10-27: each operating figure above was compared with this site's own published pages that day. Published by SBT FulfillDock under its registered name, Shenzhen Shibotong International Logistics Co., Ltd..