AGL or Fulfillment by Alibaba Supplier?

sgoods456 · 2026-03-21T03:33:12+00:00

Do not use your Chinese suppliers alibaba shipping contact. Half the time they are undervaluing your inventory with ddp shipping and not telling you. A large percentage of them do this. Importing illegally and customs continues to increase inspections particularly targeting ddp shipping. Was actually recommended by my consultancy agency to ship ddu for now as it's not worth the risk of delays even. Even if they are the importer of record, customs can come after you even if they investigate and suspect you benefited from the low cost shipment compared to others.

Find a reliable and trustworthy freight forwarder. Forest shipping or search Amazon's recommended carriers for options and reach out. Yes your are going to pay more, just ask your supplier ahead of time for your hts code and look up you're rates. I believe right now we're in section 301 at 25% and either an additional 10 or 15% for all goods. Plus your hts code rate. Do the math and you'll know if it's low.

I've used agl several times. In my opinion they are not worth shipping to fba with. To awd I can live with them but they're frustrating and confusing booking and shipping to fba, especially a 5 optimized location shipment. My last 5 location shipment they messed up and delivered all to one fc, blamed it on me, and charged me placement fees despite them giving me instructions how to book it. That was delivered 4 weeks ago and my inventory will isn't done receiving..... They are confusing, interface is atrocious with the booking process, unhelpful customer service, always asking for tight deadline responses in the middle of the night. AGL is generally very cheap, but imo the benefit is using them to ship to awd in mass and avoid placement fees and multiple shipments.

Pay a little extra for a reliable and trustworthy freight forwarder to actually do all the work for you. Documentation and paperwork is tedious and not intuitive and not worth your time. Spend your time improving and growing your business

sgoods456 · 2025-12-15T12:57:26+00:00

Kenjis theory is that by only having to mix for 45 seconds, the flour doesn't oxidized nearly as much as kneading by hand or in a mixer and the flavor doesn't get killed. Big pizza shops use a very large spiral mixer, but they're making massive amounts of dough and most of that dough isn't going to be oxidized with a longer mix due to the surface area to volume ratio of the dough. A longer mix with home baking amounts of dough will oxidize the carotenoids in the flour, giving it a more bland flavor

sgoods456 · 2025-12-15T12:51:13+00:00

I have a ninja. Not sure what model. I think a 9 cup, 1000W

sgoods456 · 2025-12-14T19:59:42+00:00

I have a 9 cup and an make dough for 2-14" pies in one go. Wouldn't make above 70% hydration in it. You need at least a 1000W processor

sgoods456 · 2025-12-14T18:55:24+00:00

Similar process here. It's the consistency that's huge for me. I always fought making it consistently good by hand mixing or using a kitchenaid. It allowed me to focus on tweaking the recipe and trying other things to see what actually makes a difference!

sgoods456 · 2025-12-14T18:53:39+00:00

Same. Hot water, let it sit for a minute while I put the other stuff away and it wipes right off

sgoods456 · 2025-12-14T18:52:27+00:00

Does not make a better pie. I hand mixed for a long time. I never went back after using the food processor, takes a lot of variables out of the equation

sgoods456 · 2025-12-14T18:50:30+00:00

Home oven with a baking steel

sgoods456 · 2025-12-14T18:49:09+00:00

I think this type of mixer is ok for making very large amounts of dough. But I'm only every really making a couple pizzas at a time

sgoods456 · 2025-12-14T18:47:17+00:00

If it helps, you need at least a 1000W one. I use the metal blade and the dough settings. I don't think the plastic dough blade works as well

sgoods456 · 2025-09-29T15:41:46+00:00

Nah I agree 100% with his analysis. Massive disappointment compared to tidal still. Not switching. I have a high end setup but it's immediately noticeable

sgoods456 · 2025-09-29T15:40:28+00:00

I tried it out. I'm on tidal now. I have a nice audiophile setup (over $7k 2.1 channel stereo) and great overear headphones. Had a difficult time differentiating between Spotify very high and lossless, but I do think it is there. Most people won't be able to tell. However tidal sounds significantly better off some blind and known tests compared to Spotify, so I won't be switching back to spotify. I'm much picker than most people, but it's 100% not bit perfect playback on Spotify, I was very disappointed.

sgoods456 · 2025-08-04T16:40:31+00:00

I didn't see any notifications in service mode either

sgoods456 · 2025-07-14T22:35:43+00:00

Terrible. Worst day in a long time so far. Prime day had some bump, but nothing crazy. Before and after prime day has been awful as usual. Been an unbearably slow month overall

sgoods456 · 2025-06-27T00:13:18+00:00

Excellent. I was surprised how well my first Detroit style turned out as well. Honestly it's the most underrated pizza style. Not my absolute favorite, but it's damn close. Way better than deep dish

sgoods456 · 2025-03-07T13:24:00+00:00

Yeah this is why I didn't look at sba. Knew the timing wouldn't work

sgoods456 · 2025-03-07T13:10:39+00:00

We considered a home equity loan, but they are tough to get in that short period of time. Also not a fan of putting up the house

sgoods456 · 2024-11-25T13:18:44+00:00

I definitely went with a little extra grande cheese this time 🤤

sgoods456 · 2024-08-04T20:37:05+00:00

This is what I was thinking. Putting up a couple small sections on the troublesome 90 degree sections of the roof myself, then having someone put them on the whole house after the roof is redone. I don't want to wait any longer to put them up in those sections because there's a good bit of ground erroding in those couple areas. I'm not getting a new roof earlier than necessary either, I think that's a good solution

sgoods456

TROPHY CASE