Many people know that Chinese tires have advantages in quality and price, and are deeply loved by customers. Especially over the years, more and more Chinese brands are going to the world.
Some truck fleets owners or friends who do auto repair business have tested Chinese tires in local and plan to import tires directly from China to save some intermediate costs.
There are also some tire importers with several years of experience who are not satisfied with their previous suppliers and want to change with new suppliers, wondering how to ensure tire quality and business service.
As a tire export industry practitioner for 8 years, this article today may give you some inspiration for your Chinese tire import business.
Q1, How to Find Reliable Tire Suppliers?
Tire Exhibitions Every year, from January to December, there are professional tire shows and auto-part exhibitions around the world. During this time, Chinese tire suppliers will form a professional exhibiting team and bring tire samples in the exhibition. Face-to-face communication is better to choose the right tire supplier.
B2B platform Many tire companies have professional B2B platforms, such as Alibaba, Global Sources, and Made In China to promote their tire and show their companies.
Website Lots of Chinese tire companies are aware of the importance of websites. They pay a lot of money and energy to invite the professional team for making a website.
SNS Platform Chinese tire companies publish their latest patterns or sizes, through WeChat, FACEBOOK, LINKEDIN, TWITTER, TikTok, etc. SNS is one of the efficient ways to reach suppliers.
Google Search Use Google the keywords to get the information of Chinese tire suppliers. Google’s trust endorsement can also play a certain persuasive power.
China Local Visits Tire industrial clusters in China, mainly around Dongying city and Qingdao city, in Shandong Province. Other provinces also have very famous tire factories, but the scale of Shandong Province is more concentrated. You can visit companies and factories there, to enhance your judgment by making comparisons. You can also contact your friends or agents in China to help you with this process.
Friends recommend If you have friends who already started importing tires from China, ask them directly. Friend recommendation will be much more efficient and avoid troubles.
Q2, Tire Factory or Trader? Which one is better?
Factory Tire factory is often busy with the production process.
Purchase raw materials, daily care for production equipment, new patterns design, certificate application, tire mass production plan, quality control, tire storage, tire container loading and offloading, after-sales service, logistics delivery, company management. All these daily affairs require close cooperation between all factory departments. That’s why factories put most of their effort into factory management and quality control on products.
Some factories do not have their own export department. This kind of factory will cooperate with some large export trading companies. The factory is responsible for production, quality control, and delivery. The trading company will do the exclusive promotion and sign the papers with factories on sales volume. Factories do their domestic sales in local.
Factory’s trading company Some factories have their own trading company. This factory regards the export business as their main sales business. They gradually set up their own trading department. This kind of trading company is good at handling big orders from mega customers. They could take care of the delivery time and have advantages on tire prices. However, if you are not the core customers of factories, maybe will not get much more benefits.
Other trading companies Most trading companies are good at marketing. They know the market well. and is very flexible. They occupy a large proportion of the factory’s export sales and maintain a close relationship with factories. Trading companies usually can get a better price and delivery time. Their salesmen are good at communicating, like speaking English, Spanish, Russian, etc.
They also have flexibility in customizing products and can help mix products from several factories in 1 container as required. Providing products with different price levels and quality levels, or providing consolidation services.
So you may be thinking, what kind of company should I choose in my tire business?
It’s not absolutely.
When you choose a tire business supplier, it is always judged by your own situation.
The best choice is to find a company that matches you well.
Price, Quality, Payment Method, Delivery, service, market protection.
Please tell yourself which factors are more important in your current business.
Factories with the cheapest price may ask you for quite stable annual or monthly tire purchasing orders, and factories with the cheapest price, their delivery time is not often fast.
Factories with the best quality should have a good brand reputation, usually very expensive. Will have stable exclusive agents around the world, and a higher degree of market saturation. The requirements for exclusive agents will be high.
Factory with good payment method might ask for higher tire price. The factory often has lots of bank loans, they need to pay the bank interest monthly or annually. I am not sure many factories could give free money for customers to boost local business.
So, a customer seems could not get 2 sides of a coin easily, at the same time.
Best quality, cheapest price with the fastest delivery time.
That’s why the right supplier is the one who addresses your most important concerns
For example, if you care about price, you’d better give the factory a fairly stable order first. Otherwise, the price may not be as good as the one from a trading company.
Q3, Procurement Procedure
Most of the B2B business models for importing tires from China are done with the following steps. Here will describe it for your reference.
However, before describing the import steps, you need to make sure that, you are qualified to import and that you have a suitable customs broker to assist you in the import process.
At the same time, you should check the required documents for importing tires in your country, the clearance certificate, and the tire importing duty rate. Find a reliable local customs clearance agent, they will take care of the necessary matters, such as customs clearance documents and cargo transportation.
- Confirm the tire pattern and make a contract
- Confirm the payment method
- Shipping freight and shipping forwarder.
- Delivery Time
- Loading
- Make documents and issue Bills of Lading
- Make the balance payment.
Step 1. Confirm the tire pattern and make a contract.
The best-selling tread patterns and sizes are basically certain in one market. You could also get more comprehensive information from the end customers, the local market, or ask the China tire suppliers.
Usually, you could choose the sizes and patterns from the tire category, then get a quote, and confirm the tire model, pattern, quantity, price, delivery time, etc.
The common price terms are FOB USD price, CIF USD price (including freight and insurance), and CNF USD price (including freight). EXW China Yuan is pick-up at factory price, which is not commonly used when exporting tires.
The minimum order quantity is usually 40HQ or 20GP. It’s full container loading (FCL).
Step 2. Confirm the payment method.
TT payment is the most common payment. Some countries, due to the USD control, that can’t pay TT, might make the LC payment. As for the Credit and DP method, a small part of companies will do for their old customers. It is an extremely high requirement for the buyer’s reputation and supplier’s cash flow.
Some customers do a test order through the ALIBABA platform, to make sure the fund’s safety, in the first time cooperation. In fact, this risk could be avoided if you are careful enough at the beginning of selecting suppliers.
Here need to pay attention that although it rarely happens, when the supplier tells you they change the bank account, you’d better make a call to confirm. Possibly, the hackers maliciously tampered with the bank account, resulting in unnecessary losses.
Step 3. Shipping freight and shipping forwarder.
Chinese tire suppliers most time cooperating with many professional local shipping forwarders. The main port for tire exporting is Qingdao port, China. More than 90% of the China tire containers are exported to worldwide from Qingdao, every year.
Shipping Company Selection. Your tire supplier could help you compare the price of several shipping companies to choose the best solution. Or you can choose the shipping company with good service in the destination port, as your appointed freight forwarder.
Container Transmit. Some containers need transmit by railway or by road transshipment to your city after arrival. Just provide the name of your city directly, so the tire supplier can check the cost and transshipment method.
Door-to-door service. The United States, Canada and other regions can offer door-to-door service. When your containers finish clearance through customs, the shipping company will arrange container delivery, directly to your warehouse. You do not have to contact the fleet, and the cost is all included in the ocean freight.
Free Demurrage and Free detention. The shipping company will provide the corresponding free demurrage and free detention time, according to the congestion situation in the destination port and the turnover of the containers.
The free demurrage means free container using time in the port, after container arrival. The free detention means after the container finishing clearance, the free time to use the container to delivery from port and send back port.
When booking space, the shipping company would tell how long for free demurrage and for free detention. If your transmission is particularly troublesome or it takes relatively long time, you could ask the tire supplier help you buy the free days when booking. After booking confirmed, shipping company could not accept the changment on demurrage time and detention. The expense is not too much, comparing you buy at destination port. My Afghanistan customers always buy it when booking, according to him, the cost is much cheaper than the port of destination.
Step 4. Delivery Time.
The delivery time of tires depends on the production arrangement and inventory from different factories. It usually rangs from 7-30 days. Delivery will generally be arranged according to the order of the contract and time of receiving deposit. If your tire order is at production line or going to be put on the production line, your container will be loaded according to the factory schedule. If you order, need to submit a production plan, then the delivery will be calculated according to the time the factory arranges the tire molds. In the peak season, China domestic orders and exporting orders increase together, the order delivery period need to be calculated according to your tire export salesman.
Step 5. Loading.
After the tire order completing production, it’s time to load container. The factory has its own truck fleets to go to the port yard and pick up the containers. It usually takes 1-2 days before loading, according to the factory loading plans.
1) If mixing load tires and other products, the professional tire warehouses could help with various services such as, tire assemble, tire mix loading, and tire assembling. This kind of warehouses are not far from the port yard. They will charge the special service fee for loading, off-loading and above service, for helping maximize the space utilization of the container.
2) For orders requiring special inspection, the inspectors from the third-party inspection company (INTERTEK, SGS, BV etc) will come to the factory or warehouse before loading or when loading. Then they could issue the Inspection Papers.
Step 6. Make documents and issue Bills of Lading.
After loading, the tire supplier will issue packing list, invoice, bill of lading and other test reports or related product certificates. You need to keep these documents well. They are the documents for customs clearance when the container arrive at the port. If the shipping period is long, I suggest you to buy a shipping insurance. It is very cheap, according to the value amount of invoice, about $30-50. But its such a comprehensive protection for your business.
Step 7. Make the balance payment.
After the goods are on board, you can track the arrival time by searching the bill of lading number or container number on the official website of the shipping company.
According to the requirements of the contract, you need to arrange the balance payment. After receiving your final payment, the tire supplier will arrange the original documents by DHL/Fedex or telex release the container in the shipping companies’ system. Here we basically completes the documentation for one order, and you can pick up the cargo at the destination port after the container arrive.
Conclusion
This is all what I want to share. I believe you now understand ”How to import tires from China” and ”How to choose a tire supplier from China” now?
If you have any questions, you can leave a comment below and I will reply them.
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