Experience Negotiating and Shipping Goods from China to Amazon Effectively

The notes below gather some important lessons on negotiating and shipping goods from China to Amazon, after nearly a year serving the community of Amazon sellers. Hopefully these tips will help you optimize sourcing and delivery, save costs, and ensure output product quality.

1. Negotiating Goods

When negotiating price and choosing a supplier, negotiating in Chinese builds goodwill and gets highly effective results. However, if you negotiate in English on platforms like Alibaba, it’s worth referencing separate experience for the best results there.

1.1. Choosing a Supplier

One popular e-commerce site is 1688, offering domestic wholesale prices lower than Alibaba. To get the best price, prioritize choosing a direct manufacturer. 1688 has a filter tool to help find suppliers quickly, for example sorting by price from low to high. It’s best to choose a balance between low-price suppliers and a few higher-priced ones to compare product quality. This helps avoid the risk of buying cheap goods with poor quality, which affects your reputation when selling on Amazon.

1.2. Price Negotiation

After identifying a few suitable suppliers, you can usually negotiate a discount of 5% to 25% depending on the product type and supplier. For health-related items or those requiring high quality standards, keeping a reasonable price to ensure a good product is very important, to avoid a supplier cutting the price by lowering quality. Before negotiating, check whether the supplier has previously supplied goods to Amazon sellers, based on images, logos, or feedback from previous buyers, to assess reliability and quality.

Another tip is to always ask the supplier for necessary certifications like FDA or BPA-free (if required for the item) to ensure safety and prove quality. You should also ask them to send real product photos and a production process video to assess the supplier’s professionalism and transparency yourself.

2. Shipping Goods

The process of shipping goods from China to an Amazon warehouse is usually handled entirely by professional logistics services or a forwarder. The seller only needs to prepare the goods and package them to Amazon’s standards (box dimensions, number of products per box, and the weight of each box). If goods are being sent to different Amazon accounts but the same warehouse, you can combine the receiving address to save on shipping costs.

Some shipping notes:

• Shipments under 10kg should be combined to reach over 10kg to minimize shipping fees, since the rate for lightweight goods is usually higher.
• Shipments arriving at the warehouse may be randomly inspected, photographed, and have the carton reinforced if needed, with notification given if a box needs to be replaced due to damage.
• Barcode and label application should be requested from the supplier before shipping to save time; if a label is damaged, the shipping provider may be able to reapply it for free.
• A common shipping method is UPS Ground, with the advantage of low cost and no import duty. If you want faster Express shipping, you need to check the tax rate based on the HS code to avoid extra costs.
• Shipping time to Japan is usually faster and cheaper than to the US — worth considering when choosing your market.

Finally, when choosing a shipping service, refer to detailed pricing and compare limits and guaranteed delivery time to ensure your goods plan runs smoothly, contributing to more efficient Amazon business operations.