Export Orders & Documentation

What to send with an export enquiry

More than a domestic enquiry needs, but it saves an exchange of emails across time zones:

• Destination port or city, and the country. Freight and packing both change with it.
• The commercial term you work on — ex-works, FOB or CIF. If you are not sure, say so and we will explain what each means for your landed cost.
• Your forwarder, if you have one. Many buyers have a better rate with their own agent than we can get, and we have no objection to handing the consignment over.
• Electrical supply at destination — voltage, phase and frequency. This is the single most common cause of a machine arriving and not running, and it is the easiest to get right in advance.
• Any import requirement your country imposes — a pre-shipment inspection, a conformity certificate, a specific marking on the packing.

Export packing

Sea freight is a harsher journey than road freight: weeks of humidity, salt air, container movement and handling at both ports. Packing is specified for that rather than scaled up from a domestic crate.

Where the destination requires it, timber is treated and marked to ISPM 15. Tell us the country at the enquiry stage and it is built into the quotation instead of appearing as a surprise cost later.

Documentation

The commercial invoice and packing list travel with every consignment. Beyond those, what is required depends on the destination and on your bank: a certificate of origin, a bill of lading or airway bill, an insurance certificate, and any inspection or conformity document your country demands.

Tell us what your bank and your customs broker need. Getting the document set right before shipment is far cheaper than correcting it while a container sits at a port.

Payment routes

Export payment terms are agreed per order and stated on the quotation. Advance remittance and letter of credit are both normal in this trade; which suits you depends on your bank and the order value.

If you are working to a letter of credit, send the draft before it is opened. An LC with a term nobody can meet is a problem discovered at the worst possible moment, and reading the draft first costs nothing.

After-sales at a distance

Support across a border cannot depend on sending an engineer for every fault, so it depends on two other things: parts that are already with you, and a person who will take the call.

For an export machine we recommend a spares kit shipped with it. A part that has to clear customs after a breakdown is a part that arrives weeks late, and the cost of holding it in your store is a fraction of the cost of the wait.

Distributor enquiries are open in African markets. A distributor gets the same warranty terms and the same spare parts pricing as a direct customer — we do not run two price lists.

Landed cost, not machine cost

The commonest mistake in an export purchase is comparing machine prices when the thing that decides the outcome is landed cost. Two ex-works prices can differ by ten per cent and the landed costs by far more.

Add the export packing, inland haulage to the port, ocean or air freight, insurance, destination charges, your customs duty and clearance, and the inland leg at your end. Ask us to quote ex-works, FOB and CIF and you can see where each of those sits and price the rest against your own rates.

Then add the part that does not appear on any quotation: what a breakdown costs when the spare has to clear customs. That is why a spares kit shipped with the machine is worth more on an export order than on a domestic one.

Marking, language and the destination's rules

Packing marks, case numbers and the language on the documents are set by the destination rather than by us. Tell us what your customs broker and your bank require and it is built in from the start.

Some markets require a pre-shipment inspection, a certificate of conformity, or a specific declaration on the invoice. These are cheap to arrange before shipment and expensive to arrange afterwards, with a container sitting at a port accruing demurrage.

If you have imported before, send us the document set from a previous shipment. It is the fastest way for us to see exactly what your side needs.