For most mechanical equipment, construction materials, and furniture items, customers usually opt for sea transportation as the overall transportation cost is more stable.

However, if it’s for replenishing inventory, promotional orders, or if the factory has delayed delivery, we generally recommend that customers give priority to air transportation to avoid affecting the sales rhythm due to stock shortages later.It’s less about “cheap or expensive”, more about timing.

Many Latin American customers who are purchasing goods from China for the first time tend to prefer DDP transportation because the process is relatively simple.

Especially when there is no local customs clearance team for cooperation, and they are not familiar with the import tax procedures, door-to-door transportation can reduce many communication and coordination issues. We see this a lot with first-time buyers from Latin America. At first, they try to save on freight cost, but later realize customs handling is the part that slows everything down. DDP just removes a lot of that friction.

The sea transportation from China to Central and South America usually takes around 25 to 40 days. However, the actual time may be affected by the shipping routes and transfer ports.

Based on our 22 years of shipping experience, delays are more likely to occur when ships make transfers from the United States or Panama. Direct or regular liners are generally more stable. Many customers ignore the transfer time, resulting in the overall delivery being more than one week later than expected.

The main reasons can be categorized into three types:

First, port congestion. In peak seasons, ports like Manzanillo and Cariaco often require an additional 2-5 days for berthing.

Second, changes in shipping company schedules or unloading of containers, which may directly delay the overall shipping schedule by one week;

Third, consolidated container shipments. If one of the suppliers delays delivery, the loading time for the entire container will be postponed.

In actual experience, for many goods that are “expected to arrive within 30 days”, the more common situation is that they actually arrive between 33 and 45 days later.

For ocean shipping consolidated containers, the charges are generally calculated based on CBM (cubic meters). However, many customers only focus on the ocean shipping unit price and overlook the port charges at the origin and destination. For small shipments, the overall cost is prone to be raised. For full containers, the prices are directly quoted as 20GP or 40HQ, and the prices are relatively stable. However, during peak seasons, they may also adjust according to the market.

Air freight is calculated based on the billing weight. The final charge is determined by the higher of the actual weight or the volumetric weight. In our practical experience, light and fragile items such as lamps, plastic parts, or products with large packaging usually incur a final cost that is approximately 20% higher than the customer’s initial estimate.

The HS Code may seem like just a code, but it has a significant impact in actual customs clearance.

Some customers fill it in randomly, or different suppliers write their own versions. As a result, it becomes easier for customs to check at the destination port.

We usually help our customers check and verify it uniformly before shipment to avoid repeated modifications later.

The import taxes in Central and South American countries vary significantly. The general combined tax rate is usually between 10% and 35% (varying depending on the product category).

For instance, the tax rate for machinery and equipment is generally lower, while that for consumer goods and electronic products may be higher. Some countries also impose value-added tax (VAT), which would increase the overall cost by approximately 15% to 20%. When we were processing actual orders, we found that many customers initially only calculated the value-added tax, but overlooked the VAT at the destination port and the customs clearance fees. As a result, the overall landed cost ended up being approximately 20% – 40% higher than expected.

We have found that the inspections are triggered due to unclear declaration information or inconsistent documents. Common issues include vague invoice descriptions or inconsistent HS Codes. Usually, we will help customers unify the information before shipment and pre-check the documents to reduce the probability of inspection.

In the transportation from China to Central and South America, consolidated shipping is a common practice. Goods from different factories can usually be consolidated into one container for shipment. The prerequisite is that the arrival times and documents of each supplier need to be unified in advance. Otherwise, if just one supplier is late, the entire container loading plan will be delayed. This is one of the most common situations in consolidated shipping.

The key point of goods consolidation is to promptly check the labels and quantities before the goods are warehoused. Generally, we will confirm the cargo information for each shipment before loading onto the container and take photos for record-keeping to prevent issues such as missing or mixed goods later.

The customs clearance process in Mexico is generally not particularly fast, especially in Manzanillo. During peak seasons, this issue becomes even more pronounced.

Often, it’s not a complete blockage but rather the documents are queued up or require some additional explanations. Once the processing is completed, they are released.

Brazil customs usually pays closer attention to document details, especially tax numbers and product descriptions.

Most delays are not because clearance is impossible, but more because the system keeps reviewing the information or asks for reconfirmation, which tends to slow things down.