How To Ship Lithium Battery

As Lithium Batteries are considered dangerous goods, so shipping batteries is always a headache, this is also a big challenge for us as lithium battery manufacturer, who are deemed to have many forwarders to handle battery shipping without hassle.

There are generally 3 ways to ship batteries, by air, by sea and by express(including FedEex, UPS, DHL).

For bulk order(more then 200kgs per order), if you want cheap, ship by sea, if you want them fast, ship by air,if you want to ship door to door and fast, ship by express.

It is that simple.

But what about sample order or small order(less then 1 kgs or 100kgs).

Shipping by express could be very expensive, as UPS/Fedex/DHL will charge extra DG cost(mainly DG papers and handling fees) about 150-250 USD per shipment.

Some customers doubt whether we are shipping from the moon, as normal goods may be charged at 20 dollars for sample order.

But you see it here: the DG cost is 150-250 per shipment.

This is a big expense for sample order, as the battery sample may cost 10 USD only.

So forwarder come with new shipping methoud: by air + local delievery, we here call it AFG.

so how does shipping batteries by AFG works:

1 By AFG means by Air+Fedex Ground, it takes about 15 days to be delievered to USA,20-25 days to Europe(door to door)

here is a internal tracking of one recent shipment to USA

shipping-batteries-by-afg

and customer can track the shipment on fedex tracking(same shipment)

shipping batteries by fedex ground

2 By AFG means you can get the goods at lower cost, but no customs papers are provided, no commericial invoice are provided(stamp with local customs), you will get the battery package at a set time

3 IMPORTANT: If, in case you need to get the offical customs paper and commercial invoice (from local customs or with customs stamp), please don’t use AFG service. Not any papers will come with the AFG service, you will need to use air flight, sea freight or FedEx/UPS/DHL service to get those customs clearance papers.

For companies that require customs paper, please don’t use the AFG service.

4 AFG= Air+fedex Ground , AUG=Air+ UPS Ground, we remain the rights to use AUG or AFG. Normally for USA shipment, we use AFG and for EU customers we use AUG mostly.

5 About 70% percent of our battery shipment is via AFG/AUG

Here is how AFG works: one main forwarder will collect all the goods and book airflight for one shipment and declare at destination customs: they may clear 2000kgs with 100 different shipment with just one bill to save cost. When everything is cleared at customs, the forwarder will then choose cheap local shipping agency, like fedex ground for the final delievery.

The main profit for the forwarder comes from the shipment by air.

but this step brings challenge: the goods may not on plane as it is planned or they cannn’t clear it
at customs.

the good thing is you only have to wait 2 times normal UPS/Fedex shipping time, but pays 1/2 or even 1/4 of the expense you have to pay to Fedex/UPS/DHL.

To sum up

Pros to choose UPS/FedEx/DHL

1 shipping time is 99% certain 5-7 days
2 official custom clearance(if you are government agency, or the bank requires BOE or AWB, please use FedEX, UPS/DHL instead of AFG service)
3 commercial invoice

Cons to choose UPS/Fedex/DHL

1 Expensive shipping cost
2 Customs charges and handling fees

what about by air+fedex/UPS Ground (AFG)

Pros:

1 Cheap shipping charges
2 Shipping at a set time frame for 85% percent
3 No extra customs charges

Cons:

1 No customs papers provided, that means there is no AWB, no BOE will be provided, IE: if the Bank or Government requires customs papers, please don’t use this shipping method.
2 Shipping time is for reference only, 10% chances that you can not get the package at so said time shedule.

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