Practical guides on importing and sourcing from China to Bangladesh – covering freight, customs, suppliers, quality control and trade costs from the DE International team.
Guangzhou is the transport hub, but the real wholesale markets for furniture, lighting and building materials sit in satellite towns nearby. Here is what a sourcing trip actually looks like.
Alibaba and Global Sources solve the same problem in different ways. Here is how the two platforms actually differ, and when Bangladeshi importers should use one, the other, or both.
Floor-stacked cartons are how most small importers start. The moment inventory outgrows that, the racking choice made next affects picking speed, damage rates, and warehouse rent for years.
A cold room or reefer container only protects perishable cargo while it is inside them. The packaging around the product itself is what protects it during every gap in between.
When one purchase order arrives in several shipments instead of one, customs clearance stops being a single straightforward event and becomes several smaller ones, each with its own risk.
A warehouse fire does not just destroy stock. It can void an insurance claim entirely if basic fire safety compliance was never in place, turning a bad week into a business-ending one.
Goods brought in for a trade fair or as unsold samples are not meant to stay in Bangladesh permanently, and customs has a separate, less-understood process for exactly this situation.
Air cargo does not just get weighed and loaded. It passes through a formal security screening chain before an airline will accept it, and understanding that chain avoids avoidable delays.
Most e-commerce sellers default to air or courier because it feels faster and simpler. Past a certain order size, sea freight LCL quietly becomes the better math — if you plan around its slower timeline.
THC shows up as a separate line on almost every sea freight invoice, at both ends of the voyage, and confuses first-time importers more than any other freight charge. Here is what it actually covers.