This is an post guiding beginners from purchase to use of the BBQ boat BQ350. It covers beginners and veterans who buy products a lot from China with years’ of trading experiences. Some tricks you don’t know, some tricks that the Chinese trading bastards won’t let you know forever! For example the shipping freight over-paid issue that happened a lot to the experienced importers, but they don’t even know that.
BBQ Boat, BQ350, Full Process Map
Our team has 20+ years experience in the boats design, manufacturing, and exporting business. We know how to use the regulations to save costs for you.
You don’t need to read this post completely, but please pay more attention in step 4, 7, 10, we will expose some hidden rules in the trading sectors.
Step-1, let us know your needs
- How many BBQ boats do you want?
- Have you ever run the rental business of the BBQ boat before?
- What country do you want to use the BBQ boat?
- Before our quote, are there any budget limitations you can share with us?
- Are there any questions that bothering you a lot when you plan your rental business?
Yet the price comes with the quantity, right?
The more you order, the lower price it will be, that’s for sure!
The more info. you share with us, the more specific quotation we will make for you.
Step-2, initial quote
The 1st round prices will be higher, because there are many unknown points like I don’t need this but I do want that.
So please don’t be shy to tell us your specific needs, we will tell you which one for free, and which one is charged.
And we will do our best to offer you a better price on the final quotation.
Step-3, confirm your list
We will confirm with you for all the necessary info. as follow,
- Your final accessory list of the BBQ boat
- The shipping info. such as port of destination, transit time.
- Your schedule for the BBQ boat rental business
- The local weather characteristics, which will determine whether we need to reinforce certain parts of the boat.
For example, if hurricane happens a lot where you are about to rent the boats, we’d love to pack more parasol ribs as the spare parts for free. Even we have strong faith in the BQ350 quality, we must respect the nature. Sometimes shit happens, we need to hope for the best and plan for the worst.
Step-4, final quote
Please pay more attention to the delivery time and the shipping price expiry date.
It is more important than the BBQ boat prices, and it’s also a hidden trick that the trading company who quotes you a lower price but actually makes a lot from you. We will explain you how they make money by using the shipping expiry date in Step-7.
Q: Is this the final best price we can get for you? 😐
A: Technically, yes. In reality, not 100% yes.😅
If the BBQ boat price is still more than your budget limitations, we can try something to save your payment.
Example-1, if we had 3 orders in line, and you are OK with the delivery time could be extended like 30 days, then we would love to lower the final price for you.
Example-2, if the location where you are about to rent the BBQ boat is very important to us, we would love to lower the price for you. There are more situations that we might help you with the final price, we can talk about it privately.
Step-5, deposit
We accept 50% payment as the deposit through wire transfer.
Please send us the payment receipt, it could be in PDF or a picture taken by your smartphone.
With the receipt, we can prepare for the BBQ boat production 3 days in advance even we haven’t received the payment.
Step-6, BBQ boat producing
Normally it takes roughly 7 days for a BBQ boat from scratch to all finished, but it depends on the specific accessories on your list.
For example, our battery supplier needs us to place the order 30 days in advance.
And sometimes the electric engines are out of stock, we also need more days to wait.
We will keep you posted in this step.
Step-7, BBQ boat packing & delivery
- Your company name:
- contact name:
- telephone number:
- shipping Address:
- A.C.N. No. for Australian companies.
- BOND No. for U.S. companies.
- SIRET No. for France companies.
Trick-1, everything’s going perfect and the BBQ boats have all been loaded into the container. The CN trading company even sent you some loading pictures. It looks all clear, but you have lost let’s say 1,000 USD for instance.
What? When? How? OMG…
Do you remember the shipping price expiry date?
If the shipping price was in a higher level when they sent you the quotation, and after 30 days’ preparation for the BBQ boats, the shipping price got back to a lower level you don’t know that, and you paid against to the higher one, the balance went into the trading company’s pocket.
It happens a lot especially during the holiday!
Tips: Please always remember that the shipping companies like Maersk, CMA, HPL, they have ocean alliance globally. Any chance when the shipping date is close to any holiday in any country, all prices go high together.
In the FOB price term, even you paid the shipping freight directly to the shipping forwarder’s account pointed out by the trading company. Their manager will split your balance with the trading company. That’s trick No. 1.
Trick-2, “Chaos is a ladder.”
That’s a famous line of Lord Baelish (Littlefinger) in Game of Thrones.
It is also an old trick that the trading companies are using for years.
To push you to place orders asap, they will try to break your calm logic to make you feel panic subconsciously.
The excuses belike, Israel-Hamas conflict threatens the Suez Canal, the U.S. President Trump is punishing China with higher tariff rate again, or some big port workers strike, etc.
The shipping companies tend to use those excuses to raise the prices like 20%, then the trading companies will probably tell you it’s even worse 50%. and you’re gotta hurry up to place the order before it’s too late!
Think about it, how much is the 30% of the shipping freight!!!
Some of the trading companies here in CN bought Ferrari cars for each of their employee during the COVID-19.
Solutions
Try your best to avoid the holidays, such as the Christmas, CN New Year and National Day holiday, etc.
We highly recommend you to find a loyal shipping forwarder in your country, so we can check the shipping freight on both sides in the meantime. You can either use their service and pay the freight directly by yourselves, or you can use ours if the price is better. We need to check twice at least, one in step-2 you can have a rough calculation of all the costs, one in step-7 the shipping price will be final settled.
In a word, the fewer information nodes in the transmission process, the better position you will get to control the overall costs.
Step-8, balance payment
After the ship leaves Qingdao Port, we will send you the copy of B/L in pdf, with the container No. and the seal No.
According to the WTO regulations, the balance should be paid against the copy of the B/L.
As always, please send us the payment receipt.
We will telex release the B/L to you once we receive the payment.
Tips: we tend to release the B/L by telex. The bill of lading is the sole document of title, it may be lost if we send you by DHL.
Step-9, customs clearance docs
We will make the whole package of documents for your customs clearance.
The documents including Packing List, Commercial Invoice, Certificate of Origin (needed in France, Australia, Middle East, and Africa countries) and the Declaration of Conformity files.
Please check with the local customs if they need the original docs or digital copy ones.
If it’s the latter, we will send out by DHL or FedEx.
Step-10, customs clearance & tariff
Basically the local customs will guide you through the clearance process.
With the docs we send you, they will calculate how much you need to pay for the tariff.
After the payment, they will release the container to you.
In this step, clients tend to save some payment for the tariff by using some methods as follow, btw, none of them are legal. Please don’t take the risk!!!
Method-1, modifying the total amount
The customs charges the tariff against the BBQ boat total amount shown in the invoice, no matter it’s FOB or CIF, so if the amount is small enough, technically you won’t pay much costs.
But don’t forget about what we did in step-7, what do you think the shipping company and the CN customs need your company registered No. for?
The link is literally simple, how much you paid = total amount = how much input on both sides of customs system.
They can sue you for tax fraud based on this, please don’t take the risk!!
Method-2, lowering the BBQ boat price but keep the total amount real.
Like what we mentioned before, no matter FOB or CIF, the customs charges according to the total amount. Besides the cargo value, the other payment is also covered by the tariff.
Method-3, separating the payment, first part transferred to the factory’s business account, the rest transferred to their offshore bank account.
Technically, it’ll work on your side, but the risk actually will be transferred to the factory in CN. Because the CN customs is not a fool, they will check the factory’s exporting records of historical amount per boat, the H.S. code they used before. And it will take much time for the factory to move the money from the offshore account to their local personal account. China is a country with strict foreign exchange controls.
Method-4, using 2 different accounts to transfer to the same factory’s business account.
Yeah, it works on some countries like Mexico or islands like Martinique, Guadalupe.
But it is just the matter of time the customs will find out, because the amount on both sides are different.
What we will help you with the tariff is not included above, but our method will work on both sides legally. We can discuss about it privately when it’s needed.
Step-11, assembly & use the BBQ boats
In this step, we will help you for the BBQ boat assembly by sending the necessary manual and videos.
Technically, the whole assembly process is all about tightening the bolts and nuts. Nothing else.
In the meantime will remind you the points when you use our BBQ boats.
Step-12, after-sales service
Congratulations! In this step, our BBQ boats, BQ350, will officially start to serve for your rental business.
But we see this not as our final step with you, on the contrary, our cooperation has just begun.
Reputation is our everything!!!
The limited warranty terms are just our bottom line, the reputation is actually our final goal in the global BBQ boat market. We don’t want to loose our clients by making some empty promises for the warranty like the others.
For instance, the EVA floors have 3 years warranty guarantee under normal use but the normal wear and tear conditions is not covered. If after 2 years’ normal use, the floors get too dirty to be cleaned, which has seriously affects your customers’ experience. In this case, we will send you the brand new ones for free.
Your complains about the BBQ boats, we see them as the priceless treasure!!!
