Shipping custom teamwear overseas: terms, customs and planning

What EXW, FOB, DDP and DAP actually mean

Four terms cover almost every teamwear quotation. They are not price tiers; they are descriptions of where your responsibility begins.

An EXW price will always look the lowest, because almost none of the journey has been paid for yet. That is the whole reason to compare properly.

Why the cheapest unit price is not the cheapest order

Buyers comparing two quotations often compare the wrong number. An EXW price and a DDP price are not competing figures — they are the same figure with different amounts of work included.

• Compare like with like. Convert both quotations to the same term before comparing anything, or simply ask each supplier to quote on the term you actually intend to buy on.
• Freight scales with volume, not value. Garments are bulky relative to their price, so a higher-value order does not cost proportionally more to move. Freight per piece falls as quantity rises, which is worth knowing before an order is split.
• Air and sea are different products. Air freight costs a multiple of sea freight per kilogram but arrives in a completely different order of time. The right choice depends on how badly the date matters, not on which looks cheaper.
• Small orders move by air. Below a certain volume, the port charges and documentation on a sea shipment stop making sense, and an air or courier movement is both simpler and, in practice, no more expensive.

The practical answer is to ask for the term you want to buy on, and compare those figures — rather than comparing two quotations that are not describing the same journey.

Duty, tax and who actually pays them

Import duty and tax are assessed by the customs authority of the destination country — not by the supplier, and not by the freight carrier. Three things follow from that:

• The rate depends on the destination and the classification of the goods. The same consignment can carry a different charge in two different markets. That is why we do not quote a single rate that applies everywhere, and a supplier who does should be treated with caution.
• Under DAP, the charge is yours. DAP looks cheaper than DDP precisely because duty and taxes are excluded. The bill still arrives — later, and to you.
• Under DDP, it is already inside the price. You pay more up front in exchange for no further charges on arrival.

For a school, club or company buying against a fixed budget, that certainty is usually worth having: a duty bill arriving after delivery is exactly the kind of surprise a budget cannot absorb. Say which term you need when you enquire and the quotation will be issued on that basis.

Planning backwards from the date you need kit

A delivery date is made of four steps, and only the third one is production.

1. Design and approval — mock-up issued, amendments made, final artwork signed off. This step takes as long as the number of people who have to agree.
2. Sampling — where fit or finish needs checking, a sample is made and approved before bulk cutting begins.
3. Production — scheduled once the specification and deposit are settled, on a schedule agreed in advance rather than assumed.
4. Transport and clearance — the movement itself, plus import clearance in the destination market.

The step buyers most often forget is the first. Artwork approved in a day moves the whole order forward by a week; artwork that circulates around a committee for three weeks cannot be recovered later, however fast the factory is. Start the approvals early, and start them before the season does.

Tell us the date the kit has to be in hand and we will work back through those four steps with you, so the schedule is agreed rather than hoped for.