Challenge: A U.S. furniture importer with over 100 shipments per month from China experienced costly demurrage and delays due to untimely entry filings. Lengthy and complex invoices made it difficult to determine whether the goods — which included bed parts and other furniture components — should be classified as individual parts, complete beds or other complete furniture items. These time-consuming entries resulted in late filings, and the delays put the company at risk for chargebacks from big-box retailers.
Solution: Deringer employed in-house tools to quickly calculate the quantity of complete sets and remaining parts, thus speeding up the entry process and providing more accurate HTS classifications. Centralized account management in Los Angeles provided an additional safeguard to eliminate demurrage.
Results: Customs entry filing time has dropped by 50 percent — now completed several days before port arrival. This has enabled the importer to eliminate demurrage, prevent delays and ensure more compliant entry.
About the Solution Provider: Founded in 1919 by Alfred Neel Deringer, our organization employs nearly 500 supply chain professionals. As the largest, privately held Customs broker in North America, Deringer delivers value by providing logistics solutions including Customs brokerage, international transportation, warehousing and distribution, Customs compliance consulting, and cargo insurance.
