20 years on the importer’s side, not the carrier’s
ChinaBrokers was built by people who spent more than twenty years on the other side of the table — as importers, not as forwarders selling freight. We placed orders with Chinese factories, chased loadings, collected containers in Polish ports and explained to the accountant where yet another storage invoice had come from. Those years taught us the trade from the angle you cannot see from a forwarding office: the angle of the company that pays the bill and carries the consequences of a delay.
We know where cost hides in a freight quote because we once missed it ourselves. Destination terminal handling, a documentation fee, demurrage counted from a date nobody mentioned, a fuel surcharge billed separately, a transhipment that was not in the original offer because the original offer covered port to port only. Every one of those lines cost us real money, and at the time we explained each away as 'how the industry works'. It took a while to see that the difference between a cheap offer and an honest one rarely sits in the freight rate. It sits in what gets added afterwards.
The founding moment was undramatic. After years with one forwarder — good relationship, quick replies, nothing to complain about — we happened to compare our rate against a few others on the same lane in the same week. We had been paying well above the market for a long time. There was no deception in it: nobody in that arrangement had any reason to tell us. The forwarder was earning, we were satisfied with the service, and the market moved on without us.
That is where the name comes from and where the whole idea comes from. ChinaBrokers takes one enquiry from an importer and passes it to vetted forwarders so that the offers coming back can genuinely be compared — same scope, same terms. We are not a carrier or a forwarder, we do not move containers and we are not party to the contract of carriage; you sign directly with the company you pick. For the importer the service is free, because our commission is settled on the forwarder's side. And if the outcome is that you stay with your current partner because their offer turns out to be the best — we count that as the job done properly.
- years importing from China
- 0+years importing from China
- forwarders per enquiry, at most
- 0forwarders per enquiry, at most
- to a comparison, on working days
- 0 hto a comparison, on working days
- cost to the importer, ever
- 0cost to the importer, ever
How we got here
The beginning
First import from China
One container, a supplier met at a trade fair, and a list of questions nobody would answer straight. Learning by our own mistakes: documents, deadlines and costs that were never mentioned in the first quote. That import ended in profit mainly because we did not yet know how much more could have been squeezed out of it.
Early years
Our own trading company
Regular shipments, several suppliers, growing volume. Enough repetition to start seeing patterns — which surcharges are real, which are negotiable, and which appear only because nobody asked in advance.
The turning point
The rate comparison that started this
A routine check against other forwarders on the same lane revealed we had been paying well above market for years. Not fraud — simply an arrangement in which no party had an interest in telling us. That is the mechanism this service exists to interrupt.
Today
ChinaBrokers
One enquiry, offers from a limited set of vetted forwarders, compared line by line. Free for the importer, commission settled on the forwarder's side, and no capital ties to any company in the network.
What we go by
Comparable beats cheap
An offer missing customs clearance and delivery looks cheaper right up until those lines arrive. We flag what is absent rather than crowning an incomplete quote the winner.
We say what we do not know
Where we have no data, we say so instead of producing a confident number. Estimates are labelled as estimates, and a binding figure only ever comes from a forwarder.
The client stays yours
We do not sit in the payment chain and we do not stand between the importer and the forwarder. The contract of carriage is signed directly, on your terms and your documents.
A good outcome can mean no commission
If your existing forwarder turns out to have the best offer, we will tell you. That result earns us nothing and is still the correct answer.
ChinaBrokers is a small operation, deliberately. Every enquiry is read by a person who has imported goods themselves, and every comparison is checked before it reaches you. That does not scale infinitely — and until it stops working, we would rather keep it that way than send you an automated summary nobody looked at.
Try us on a real shipment
The best test of whether this works is one enquiry. It costs nothing, and the answer will tell you more than any about page can.
No registration · no obligation · answer within 24 working hours