How to Read a Landed-Price Quote from a China Fulfilment Agent

The listing price is a factory price, the quote is a landed price

The most common reaction to a first quote is a screenshot of a marketplace listing with a much smaller number on it. The two do not measure the same thing. A listing price is the bare product cost at the factory gate, often for a minimum quantity, before anything has been packed, moved, cleared or delivered. A landed price is what it costs for one sellable unit to reach one customer's door in one country: product, inspection, packing, the international lane, duties and tax on a DDP basis, and the last mile. For a bulky item the gap can be a multiple, and most of it is volumetric weight, not margin.

That is why a quote cannot be read as a single number. Every figure that leaves a sourcing desk needs a legend: which item, on what unit basis, covering which costs, to which destination on which lane, and how long before transit begins. With all five, a quote can be compared with another agent's and with your selling price. Missing any of them, it is a question, not a decision.

The five labels every quote line needs

Item reference. The line should name the listing you sent, the variant quoted (size, colour, page count, fabric, model) and whether the factory matched it exactly or found a similar item. In the week this guide is drawn from, a stationery product that exists in several page counts was quoted without saying which one, and a run of quotes arrived as image captions with no link against them. Each became a round trip.

Unit basis. Per piece, per pair, per set, per bundle, per component or per MOQ lot. A bundle that ships as one parcel should be priced as one line with one shipping charge, not as stacked singles; a quote for the main unit of a multi-part kit, without its accessories and retail box, is not a quote for the photograph of the full kit.

Inclusions. State what sits inside the figure: product, inspection and packing, the shipping lane, duties and tax, and any customs-item line. "Product plus shipping, landed, DDP" on every line answers the question a seller otherwise comes back with later the same day as a formal list of conditions, after a two-word reply that settled nothing.

Destination and lane. A landed price is a price to one country; a neighbouring country is a different line, and the fast and standard lanes are different lines again. A throw quoted on the fast lane only looked overpriced next to an earlier standard-lane figure; side by side, the seller chose speed knowingly. On EU quotes the customs-item line is the part that most often goes unexplained; the EU €3 customs-item guide covers it, and it should be defined once in the quote that introduces it.

Lead time before transit starts. Production or procurement comes first, then factory to warehouse, then the lane. A transit window means nothing if a custom item needs a week of production the quote did not mention. Say the whole sequence and whose claim each part is: a factory's promised finish date is the factory's until the goods are scanned in.

Why a per-unit price on an MOQ item misleads

A per-piece figure on an item the factory will only sell by the lot reads as a dropship price and is not one. A seller who cannot buy one piece has no use for a one-piece number. Say up front that the item carries a minimum, what it is in the factory's terms, and what the per-unit figure assumes about quantity. Where the minimum can be met by holding a small stock line in the warehouse, say so.

The reverse also holds. A seller asking for a hundred-unit lot to one address wants a freight quote, not a parcel quote, and a single-parcel DDP figure for a bulky ride-on toy looks absurd against a factory lot price. Establish the shape of the order before the number exists.

A similar item is a different product until the quote says what differs

Factories often return a similar item rather than the exact listing. That is useful if the quote says so and names the difference: the leather texture, the pattern, the accessory set, the fabric weight. A quote marked similar with the differences listed lets a seller decide in one message; one presented as the item, where the difference surfaces in a customer's hands, becomes a return wave. When the exact item cannot be found at all, say so in the reply that reports it, with the closest match, a photo and its price alongside, so the seller is never left holding an unanswered link.

What the agent needs before a shipping figure exists

A shipping figure is a function of packed weight, packed dimensions, destination and quantity. Without the first two there is only a guess, and a guess sent as a quote comes back when the boxed unit is weighed. Collect weight and dimensions while the supplier is reachable, quote from a stated weight band if the seller needs a figure before stock arrives, and mark it provisional until the warehouse has the unit. Fragile goods get packaging options priced side by side. A brief that carries the right fields settles most of this; how to write a product sourcing brief suppliers can actually quote sets them out.

Quoting many products: batches, one sheet, active orders first

A seller validating a large catalogue cannot wait on one product at a time. What holds is a single sheet: link, target country, variant, quantity shape and a priority order. The desk works it in batches, highest priority first, and posts each batch back into the sheet rather than as captions in the thread; items with live orders waiting come first. Our standing advice to check one or two products before committing to a store applies here too: the first batch shows whether the margin exists before the long tail is quoted.

Reading a quote in sixty seconds: a seller's checklist

• Item: does the line name my reference and the exact variant, or does it say similar and list what differs?
• Unit: per piece, per pair, per set, per bundle or per lot — and can I order in that unit?
• Inclusions: product, packing, lane, duties and tax, and any customs-item line — all stated, none assumed?
• Destination and lane: one country per line, standard and fast side by side, transit separate from production?
• Lead time: how long before the parcel moves, and whose claim is that date?
• Basis: is the shipping figure from a weighed unit, a stated weight band, or marked provisional?
• If any answer is missing, ask before comparing this quote with anyone else's.

Compare the same landed-price basis

Do not compare a quote until you can read all five labels from it, and never compare it with a listing price. Once the labels are there, the landed figure is the number to set against your selling price; landed cost is the number that tells you whether you are profitable, and everything else is a component of it. For the sourcing desk the rule is the mirror image: no figure leaves without its legend, and the shape of the order is agreed before the number exists.

Evidence boundary: a composite drawn from reviewed operations conversations between 16 and 21 August 2026. Product families, destinations and price bands are generalised; no client or supplier is identified.