A «3 dollars per kilo all-in» rate looks great right up to the first inspection or the first attempt to book the goods. We break down where the gap comes from.
In Central Asia «cargo» is the everyday word for turnkey delivery of small consignments from China. The word itself is neutral. The problem is that two fundamentally different schemes are sold under it, and at the quoting stage they look identical: a per-kilo figure and a promise to «bring it to your door».
The carrier pools cargo from many clients, clears it at the border as one consignment in its own name or through simplified regimes, and hands you boxes at the end — with no invoice in your name, no declaration, no proof that duties were paid. The rate is low precisely because duties, VAT and the declarant's work have been stripped out of it.
The cargo is declared to you — as a company or as an individual. The HS code is fixed before dispatch, duty and VAT are calculated up front and included in the quote, and you receive the full set: invoice, packing list, declaration. The rate is higher because it honestly includes everything the first scheme does not pay for.
| By weight, no paperwork | Official clearance | |
|---|---|---|
| Price up front | low | higher by the amount of duties |
| Documents in your name | none | full set |
| Book on balance sheet, reclaim VAT | impossible | possible |
| Sell to a company with documents | impossible | possible |
| Compensation if lost | by goodwill, if lucky | by contract and insurance |
| Risk at an inspection | entirely on you | covered by the declaration |
We work only the second way — and that is arithmetic, not ideology: one inspection, one lost consignment or one batch you cannot sell to a wholesaler wipes out years of savings from «cheap cargo».
Describe the cargo — we return a full breakdown and transit time within two working hours.
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