If you are in a hurry to get your product, you will consider air cargo.
While very expensive, it is also very quick.
With light weight and compact products, this may be the most economical way to ship.
When considering small air shipments, courier (such as DHL, UPS or Fedex) is often the best way to ship as they will provide door to door service.
If the shipment is larger, then you will probably ship via air cargo.
When considering air cargo, you must verify the maximum size of a pallet.
Different planes have different loading capacities.
You don’t want your shipment delayed until the plane with the right size cargo hold, flies on your lane.
Air shipment charges are based on weight with a minimum charge of 10 lbs to the cubic foot (or 167 kg to the cubic meter.)
This means a bulky light weight item will be very expensive to ship via air.
The only exception is the post office which charges by weight and does not consider volume. This can change and you should check the current terms and conditions.
Ocean shipments take longer and are significantly cheaper than air shipments.
An ocean shipment can be via an exclusive container, called an FCL (Full Container Load). FCLs come in three sizes – 20 foot, 40 foot and 40 foot “High Cube” which is one foot higher.
If you have less than a full container, you will probably ship your goods as an LCL (Less than Container Load).
In this case you will pay by volume – either per cubic foot or per cubic meter.
In rare cases where you ship heavy items such as printed goods or stone, your charge will be weight at the rate of 1 ton being charged at the rate of 1 cubic meter.
Your forwarder will handle all shipping arrangements.
In both cases, air or sea shipment, you will need a licensed Customs Broker to clear your goods through Customs.
Most brokers have representatives at the airport (Ben Gurion) and the sea ports (Ashdod, Eilat and Haifa).
Once cleared, you or your forwarder will arrange delivery of the goods from the port to your warehouse.
You will want to do this as quickly as possible to avoid or at least limit expensive port storage fees.
This brief outline gives you a few pointers to help make your business a success, but obviously there is much more to learn and check before making the decision to start an import business. You must prepare a cash flow projection (don’t forget the VAT payment required to clear your goods through Customs – an outlay long before you have any income) and a profit and loss projection.
These projections will include all your operating expenses.
Remember, your salary is one of those important expenses as well.
With a lot of hard work, long hours, much luck, you can make a business succeed in Israel.
