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What if the shipment is delivered later than expected?
It's not unusual for shipments to be late, especially when they're being shipped overseas. Sometimes, business people ask the shipping company to sign the bill of lading for a few days, or even ten days, to keep the documents in order. But waiting too long to ship something can be dangerous, especially when it's money from a foreign country.
What are the consequences of a late shipment?
Overdue shipment is a breach of contract, which violates the contract/L/C stipulating the latest shipment date.
Counter signing bills of lading after overdue shipment is considered commercial fraud.
Late shipment is also an important incentive to lead to the refusal of payment, especially in the overseas transportation. For the import broker, this is unacceptable, even one day of overdue backdated, it is likely to lead to the other party to refuse to pay for various reasons.
In export trade, it's best to avoid overdue shipments to reduce trade risks and ensure safe foreign exchange collection.If there's an unavoidable delay due to production, transportation, inspection, customs clearance, or other factors, the better solution is to negotiate with the customer to postpone the shipment. If the relationship with the customer is good, you can guarantee the shipping company will pay the bill of lading if the shipment is late for a short time.
Usually, a bill of lading from another country that is 12 days old or a bill of lading for the ocean that is 15 days old is acceptable.
How can you make sure your delivery gets there safely?
To ensure smooth delivery and safe collection, it's important to understand the customer's reputation, market demand, and the quality of the goods. This approach is not blind delivery.
To make sure goods are delivered on time (which UCP500 says must be done within 21 days after loading), the shipping line may be negotiated to issue, before loading, a bill of lading that follows the terms of the L/C. The goods can then be taken up at the port of destination. The bill of lading number, box seal number, ship name, and voyage can be temporarily prepared.
It is essential to produce a set of identical and consistent foreign exchange settlement documents on time.After exchange settlement, the shipping company can send a notice to the customer in the name of the shipping company. The notice will indicate the correct ship name, voyage, container seal number, bill of lading number, etc., so that the customer can pick up the goods the first time.
Of course, because the situation is very different, the solution to the problem of late delivery is not the same.In practice, we should try our best to avoid late shipment.After a shipment is late, how to protect the rights and interests of both the supply and demand sides and ensure foreign exchange collection is what we must always pay attention to in the actual export business work.