Why a landed price
cannot be printed.
A landed price is the number a buyer actually needs: what the panel costs once it is standing in his yard. Four lines sit between the factory and that yard, and all four move — which is why the figure belongs in a quotation with a date, not in a web page without one.
The four moving lines
| Ocean freight | Priced per 40HQ, per sailing. A USD 500 move on the container is about 54 cents per panel across 930 panels — small per panel, decisive on a tender with a 2 % margin. |
| Film and glue cost | Both are bought forward. A film price step changes the panel cost before the container is even booked. |
| Exchange rate | Costed in RMB, sold in USD. The rate on the day of quotation is the rate that makes the quotation work. |
| Destination charges | Terminal handling, clearance and haulage vary by port and by broker, and they are usually the importer’s cost even under CIF. |
Three of these four can move inside a month. A page that prints a landed figure is therefore either out of date or written by someone who has not shipped yet.
What CIF does and does not include
Under CIF the seller pays carriage to the named destination port and insurance, and risk passes at loading. What the buyer still pays on arrival is the terminal handling, clearance, duties and inland haulage — which is why a CIF number is not a landed cost, and why quoting one as if it were creates the argument that follows the first container.
If the number matters more than the wording, ask for DAP or DDP and expect a slower quotation: those terms require a forwarder quote for the inland leg, and that is a quotation, not a page.
What to ask instead of a printed price
Ask for five things and the comparison becomes possible without either side guessing: the FOB price with its validity window; the freight quote with its validity window; who pays terminal handling and clearance; the insurance basis; and the panel count the price was calculated on. Two quotations that differ on any of those five are not competing numbers.
Our own terms are short: one 40HQ minimum, 100 % T/T before loading, quotation valid seven days, FOB Xiamen as standard and CIF on request. The pricing page sets out how each variable moves the total; the core note explains why two prices per m³ can describe two different panels.
One line that saves the argument
Put the validity window in the purchase order. “Price valid seven days from issue, freight re-confirmed at booking” written into the PO means nobody is surprised when the sailing is re-priced — and a supplier who will not accept that sentence is telling you something about how the next price change will be handled.