Notice For The Importation From Italy

I have ever many times importing yarns for knitting from Italy. This is we do according to buyer request for their order that were putted to our factory.  I thought our buyer from Japan like a luxury yarn with having a high price. The sweater usually has a hang tag that shows the composition and the yarn’s manufacturer.
 

We are not directly order the yarn to yarn’s factory in Italy, but buyer order the yarn to their agent in Japan, then the agent will order to Italy . I thought they have inserted the commission to the yarns price.
 

The yarn’s company we’ll send us the proforma invoice as their confirmation after we sent our purchase order (PO) to them. This proforma invoice isn’t the final quantity we will receive.
 

After the goods are being ready, they issue the packing list and invoice to be forwarded to us for our checking and payment settlement.
 

One thing made us surprise is the condition weight. The condition weight is around five percent from the net weight. So, we have to pay the additional weight for nothing. For example, the quantity or net weight on invoice is 2000 kilograms, but we have to pay 2050 kilograms. The 50 kilograms is the condition weight which we will never receive the goods.
 

Another thing that made us surprise is the term of shipment. For by sea shipment we usually prefer to take the FOB as the shipment term due to the local charges will be cheaper then CIF term. FOB is mean importer or buyer pay all transport charges starting from origin’s port. For example, if we agree the price is in FOB Genoa, the freight charges and the destination local charges will go to us. But, in fact, the last result is all charges starting from the factory will be going to importer.  In this case we may call the FOB Italy is the Ex-work.
 

The difficulty for asking them to provide the complete customs document is also happened. This is my experience, I have reminded them many times to provide all documents for the customs process, but, when the package comes, I found one of documents required is missing. Or sometimes we asking forwarder to send us the Bill of Lading, because shipper didn’t, then they only send another one. Of course, the courier fees for sending original Bill of Lading will be born to us.
 

The yarn’s supplier is also doesn’t cooperate concerning the type of move, I mean whether the shipment is using FCL or LCL. If you work in export and import world, you will learn what the volume is has to be FCL or LCL. I have twice reminded them for the cargo which having the volume or the CBM more than nine or ten, it should be arranged by FCL, otherwise we have to pay extra cost or high cost for the local charges at destination. But in fact, even we have the goods with the CBM around thirty eight, they do the shipment by LCL, then as the result we have to provide the additional cost for the local charges at destination.    
 

As the conclusion, we have to give extra effort when we order any goods from Italy. All things we need should be informed far away from the shipment and we have to remind them many times till we get what we want from them.

Case "TO ORDER OF SHIPPER" and "TO ORDER OF APPLICANT"

I have arranged the shipment to Japan for one of our buyer. We and the buyer agreed to use L/C for the order or trading. Before buyer instructs their bank to issue the L/C, they forwarded me the L/C draft for my checking.

During my reading and checking to the L/C draft, I found buyer wanted “TO ORDER OF SHIPPER “to be filled in the consignee’s column. This is making me to think two meanings when I instruct forwarder to arrange the B/L. The first meaning is "TO ORDER OF SHIPPER" wrote in consignee’s column. And the second meaning is TO ORDER OF our company name.

  

Finally, I decided the first choice or "TO ORDER OF SHIPPER" to be filled in the consignee's column on Bill of Lading. When I submitted all documents required to bank, Bank didn't found any discrepancy in Bill of Lading that I submitted to the bank.

To "TO ORDER OF APPLICANT" is something new for me and it’s seldom stated on an L/C. But, this was happened in our trade.

A buyer from Japan has changed their shipment manual concerning the consignee in Bill of Lading. They changed from "TO ORDER OF SHIPPER" becoming "TO ORDER OF APPLICANT". For our bank it’s something new, too.

I have followed the L/C, and I decided to fill in the consignee with "TO ORDER OF APPLICANT". Before the Bill of lading printed out, I have sent it to buyer to get their approval for the Bill of Lading content. Then buyer confirmed to the Bill of Lading.

After I collected and created all documents required as stated on L/C, I submitted the documents to our bank. Unfortunately, our bank found a discrepancy in Bill of Lading, specifically in consignee's column. The consignee should be TO ORDER OF “Applicant Name”. For example, let say the applicant name is ABC, then the consignee on Bill of Lading should be written with "TO ORDER OF ABC". This is because if we write the "TO ORDER OF APPLICANT", people who receive the Bill of lading will never know who is the consignee? So that the consignee name in details must be written on Bill of Lading.

Because of that, we got the discrepancy charges that will be deducted from the payment, and we have to persuade buyer to accept the discrepancy and release the payment when the documents arrived at their bank.