Guide · Cost structure
What China fulfillment actually costs
A China fulfillment bill has five possible layers: international freight priced from the packed parcel’s measured weight and dimensions; per-operation value-added services such as labeling or repacking; storage, which only exists if you deliberately keep stock; route-level surcharges like fuel or destination levies; and duties or taxes assessed by the destination country. Everything else that appears on a fulfillment invoice — procurement markups, platform subscriptions, bundled “handling” with unexplained contents — is structure the vendor chose, not physics. This page explains each layer and how to audit it.
Last updated: 2026-07-31 · This page explains structure, not rates; a machine-readable version is at https://woolii.com/pricing.md.
The five layers of a fulfillment bill
| Layer | What it is | How to audit it |
|---|---|---|
| International freight | Priced from packed weight and dimensions (whichever chargeable basis the route uses) against a live rate table for the chosen route and service level. | The quote must be produced after packing and measurement. Anything earlier is an estimate — insist the two are labelled distinctly. |
| Value-added services | Receiving inspection beyond standard, FNSKU labeling, polybagging, repacking, photo requests, palletizing — each an operation someone performs. | Each service should be declared by you and billed as its own line item, so the bill reconciles against the quote line by line. |
| Storage (optional) | Only exists when you deliberately stock SKUs. Computed from an inventory ledger — the same immutable stock-movement record that drives inventory counts. | If you hold no stock, this layer must be zero. Ask whether storage billing is ledger-derived or estimated. |
| Route surcharges | Fuel, war-risk, peak season, or destination-specific levies (for example, EU VAT handling differences, or fixed fees some countries apply to IOSS-cleared parcels). | Surcharges should live in their own layer, not be baked invisibly into rate cards; percentages should apply to the base, never compound on each other. |
| Duties and import taxes | Set and assessed by the destination country. Collection point varies: IOSS/GST-style schemes collect at sale; otherwise clearance collects from the importer. | These are never part of a shipping quote. A vendor quoting you a duty figure is estimating on the authority’s behalf. |
Fees WooliiPorter does not charge
What is absent from a bill is as informative as what is on it. These are commitments, stated publicly:
- No procurement markup — WooliiPorter never buys your goods, so there is no margin hidden in a purchase price.
- No monthly platform fee or subscription for merchant accounts.
- No minimum shipment count to start or to stay.
- No storage charges when you hold no stock — storage exists only for deliberately stocked SKUs, itemized on the monthly statement.
- No decision-time markup: the packed quote you approve is the freight figure that appears on the settlement.
Common questions
Why does this page not list actual rates?
Merchant freight depends on route, destination, chargeable weight and your parcel pattern, and is scoped per account during a workflow review. Publishing a number that cannot survive those variables would be marketing, not pricing. Public personal-forwarding rates are visible in the shipping calculator, read from the same live route table.
What is a packed quote?
The binding figure produced after your parcel is packed and measured, priced against the live rate table. It is what you approve before dispatch, and the settlement reconciles against it line by line.
How do I compare two vendors’ pricing fairly?
Ask both for the same thing: the fee structure (layers and billing units), a sample settlement for a realistic shipment, and the list of fees they do not charge. Comparing headline per-kg rates alone rewards whoever moved the most cost into the fine print.