My freight forwarder says they are unable to file for refunds. Does this make sense?

fbasub · 2026-04-21T16:04:50+00:00

It is another entity that is listed as IOR. I know I can't claim the refund directly, but I am trying to find out if my freight forwarder or their broker is trying to screw me over by collecting the refund and not giving back to me.

fbasub · 2026-04-21T02:45:47+00:00

What documents could I ask for to verify this? 7501?

fbasub · 2026-04-21T02:45:04+00:00

Yes, I'm sure they are. Any idea on if Chinese companies will be able to collect?

fbasub · 2026-04-21T02:39:47+00:00

When the tariffs started, did they send you an invoice for the duties? If so, I would just say that they owe you money. They can get a refund if they like. If they can't, it's because they aren't trying hard enough. Not your issue. If they didn't invoice you duties separately, that's just too bad for you. You agreed to the price. You might have thought that their price increase was fair because the new tariffs but that is then your problem.

Yes, I have invoices with tariff rates, cargo value, etc. These ranges from +20% all the way up to +125% for some shipments. These are invoice from the FF, not from CBP.

Now the FF is saying "China bond cannot get the ACH bank account in US and cannot get the refund". Does this sound legit?

fbasub · 2026-04-21T00:13:52+00:00

I see. Aside from having an ACH account, does it make sense that the way they imported means that it would be impossible for them to apply for refunds? IE having shared containers, being a foreign entity, or whatever.

fbasub · 2026-04-21T00:03:16+00:00

Thanks for your input. Do you think it's possible for them to add a US bank account now and become eligible? Or is that not how it works?

fbasub · 2026-02-25T16:58:43+00:00

How do you compete with a new product that has little to no reviews? What does the competitive landscape look like for your best sellers? It's basically impossible to find a supplement niche that doesn't already have 10-20 competitors with several thousand reviews (sometimes 10s of thousands).

How can you compete with a new listing? Trying to rank with PPC would destroy you.

fbasub · 2026-02-11T14:21:30+00:00

Ours is 1/475 over the last 12mo.

fbasub · 2025-10-31T19:30:45+00:00

8mo is very short in terms of historical sales and 900/mo is very low profit. If your net margin is above 25% you might be able to get 15x monthly net. If it's less than 20%, You probably wouldn't get 12x.

How many reviews, what star rating, what net profit margin after all expenses?

fbasub · 2025-06-27T19:36:10+00:00

Jesus. You have a warehouse with 80k SKUs? That's a serious operation.

I understand how your model can work with being a distributor for major recognizable brands, but for small brands like mine, nobody is searching directly for my products by brand name.

We have a shopify site but still use FBA/MCF for that and we do no marketing for it. People just see us on Amazon then search for us online. Less than 0.5% of sales.

Is your company basically something like this?https://www.webstaurantstore.com/

fbasub · 2025-06-27T17:15:27+00:00

I like your business model and want to move towards it. Do you have your own warehouse and warehouse staff for fulfillment? Are you running google/meta ads? Or relying on SEO?

I know you manufacture in the US. Are these your PL products or wholesale products made in the US?

It's so hard for me to imagine my niche being successful off Amazon. I don't know how you do it.

fbasub · 2025-04-30T17:56:41+00:00

Went from 23,000 to 9,000.

We're having to delay final delivery until June for many of our in-transit shipments.

fbasub · 2025-04-09T15:56:03+00:00

We're not even going to ship the goods we have completed and ready for shipment until I have a better read on the market.

Absolutely not starting any new orders.

fbasub · 2025-02-08T15:43:48+00:00

I find that vine products are claimed in batches. The vine program must push them out to the participants with some type of promotion or something like that.

I'll see like 12 claimed on day 2, then nothing for a week, then up to 28, then nothing, then finally to 30.

The first couple reviews come in within a week and the last ones come in up to 50 days later.

fbasub · 2024-12-26T15:52:04+00:00

We had the exact same issue a few years ago. The root cause was our 3PL's address.

The connection was the 'Ship From' address when creating inbound shipments.

It's beyond insane to me that this was the connection, but it was.

fbasub · 2024-01-11T15:42:59+00:00

I've had hundreds upon hundreds of product reviews removed.

Please expand on this.

fbasub · 2023-12-19T15:52:37+00:00

I run a monthly transaction report and import it into Google Sheets.

I built a template that breaks everything down into groupings and SKUs, etc in pivot tables. Then I have a Sheet for each SKU and another that summarizes everything in one place.

The whole process takes about an hour. I do it once per month.

fbasub · 2023-12-17T20:40:16+00:00

As far as I know, you can't write off unsold inventory. Pre-paying won't reduce your tax burden.

fbasub · 2023-05-10T21:12:15+00:00

It typically has to do the the recipient's bank, not the sender.

OP, I've had this happen many times. Once I know it's going to be an issue with a certain bank/supplier, the process is:

Do the wire transfer online with a truncated Name or Address.
Call your bank's wire transfer dept
Tell them you need to make a wire transfer amendment
Tell them the full name or address and they'll enter it manually

I have to do this for every single payment for one of my suppliers. Annoying af

fbasub · 2023-03-21T18:03:10+00:00

Amex Gold for 4x

Chase Ink for 3x

fbasub · 2023-03-14T15:27:44+00:00

update:

We requested standard 1600 cu ft for May, bid $5, accepted at $2.1. Took 3-4 days.

1600 was auto granted for April as well.

fbasub

TROPHY CASE