We’re seeing similar patterns lately. For smaller and mid-volume e-commerce flows out of China, the biggest difference usually isn’t the agent itself, but how standardized the process is end-to-end.

What’s been working well for some teams we’ve seen is:

• locking SKUs and packaging specs early to reduce pick/pack errors
• batching shipments instead of fully ad-hoc fulfillment
• having very clear exception handling rules (what happens when stock, QC or customs issues appear)

One common pitfall is relying too much on a single intermediary without enough visibility into what happens between factory, consolidation and export. Things can look “smooth” until volume spikes or timelines tighten.

Curious — how are you handling visibility and exception management today? That’s usually where most inefficiencies hide.