Questions
The things buyers actually ask before a first order.
Including the one that decides the sale — why buy through us rather than straight from the plant. Where the honest answer is “we do not know yet”, that is what it says.
Buying through us
Why not buy direct from the factory?
Sometimes you should. Several plants publish their own export price and if you have the time, the language and a forwarder you trust, buying direct is a real option.
What you are buying from us is the other two thirds of the job: a written specification put to more than one plant, somebody standing next to the machine before it is loaded, the conformity certificate your customs demands filed in the right order, a container mode chosen from measured dimensions, and one figure to your port instead of a price that stops at the ship’s rail.
We are not the cheaper route to a machine and we do not claim to be. We are the cheaper route to a machine that arrives.
Are you a manufacturer?
No. We are a registered export house working with plants in China’s construction-machinery manufacturing base. We own no production, and we do not describe a plant we buy from as ours.
What we bring is the buying side: a team with over ten years in machinery trade and export, and partner plants with more than thirty years building heavy equipment. Our registered name and registered address are published in the footer of every page and on the About page.
Why is there no price on this website?
Because a factory-gate price is not the number you pay, and publishing one would invite you to compare it against quotations that leave out freight, the certificate, clearance and inland delivery.
Tell us the model, the quantity and the destination port and you get a CIF or DDP figure with all of that inside it. That number is comparable between suppliers. A factory-gate price is not.
What is your minimum order?
We do not publish a blanket minimum. Quantity does change the quotation, so tell us whether you are buying one machine, a few, or ordering as a dealer, and we will quote the band that applies to you.
Payment and terms
How do I pay?
30% by T/T against the proforma invoice before the order is placed with the plant, and the 70% balance against a copy bill of lading. The original bill of lading, or a telex release, follows the balance.
An irrevocable documentary letter of credit at sight, opened by you and confirmed through a Chinese bank, is also accepted and is usually the better structure on multi-unit orders.
Why 30% and not the 50% other suppliers ask for?
Because in at least one of our markets a 50% deposit is not something a compliant bank will send. Nigeria’s central bank caps advance payment on a physical import at 30% of FOB value under the Foreign Exchange Manual in force since 1 June 2026.
Rather than run different terms per country and get one wrong, we set the standard at the strictest rule we deal with.
Do you offer credit terms?
Not on a first order. Open account is not something a supplier extends to a buyer it has not traded with yet. That is standard in this trade, and it is about the two of us having no history together — not about how long either side has been in business.
Once a machine has landed there is no realistic recovery route across a border. So a first order is prepaid or on a letter of credit, whoever you buy it from.
After we have shipped together, and the orders have gone the way they were written, terms are a conversation worth having. Saying no now is what keeps the 30/70 terms dependable rather than aspirational.
What currency do you quote in?
US dollars, and we settle in the currency we quoted. An exchange movement between order and shipment is not added to your invoice afterwards.
Shipping and lead time
How many machines fit in a container?
What stops a machine is the door frame, not the internal height. A 40HQ measures 2.698 m inside but the door opening is only 2.585 m, and after a 5 cm handling margin you are working with 2.29 m wide by 2.535 m high. Most self-loading mixers are over one of those two figures.
In this range that clears SLM-10, which loads two units to a 40HQ — roughly half the per-unit ocean freight of a flat-rack shipment.
Every other model in the range ships flat rack, open top or RoRo. The drum lifts and rotates, so a lowered transport height would change that answer for some of them — but no plant has given us that figure in writing, and we are not going to estimate it and let you find out at the terminal. Where it exists we will publish it; until then the answer is the out-of-gauge one.
The mode is quoted together with the machine, because on a machine this size the shipping mode moves the landed cost far more than the specification does.
How long until it ships?
We will not give you a date before there is a booking behind it. A lead time quoted at enquiry stage is a guess with a number on it, and in this trade the certificate is often slower than the machine.
What we will do is start the destination certificate in parallel with the build rather than after it, and give you the schedule as soon as the booking is confirmed. The proforma invoice states the terms in writing.
Who arranges the conformity certificate?
We do, for the destinations where the exporter is the party permitted to file. That covers Nigeria’s SONCAP Product Certificate and SONCAP Certificate, and the pre-shipment Certificate of Conformity required for Kenya, Tanzania and Ghana.
Saudi Arabia is the exception, and it is a legal one rather than a preference: the technical regulation names the Saudi agent or importer as the supplier who files. We cannot file it for you. What we can do is give your agent the complete technical file and risk assessment they need.
For any country, the cost of the certificate is built into the quotation rather than raised afterwards.
Can you ship without the certificate to save time?
No. Arriving without one converts a paperwork delay into a destination inspection at your cost, and in some markets a penalty on the CIF value on top. It is slower and dearer than doing it in order.
After it lands
What happens if something breaks?
You contact us, not the plant, with your machine’s serial number. We tell you exactly what evidence the plant will ask for — photographs of the part in place and removed, the plate, the hour meter, and a short video where the fault is a noise or a movement — and we put the claim in against the build sheet we keep on file.
Where a machine is stopped, we price and ship the part immediately rather than waiting for the claim to close, so an argument about who pays does not keep your site idle.
What we will not do is quote you a compensation percentage before the plant’s written warranty terms are on your proforma invoice.
What about spare parts?
A wear-parts list with part numbers ships alongside every unit, so your fitter is not guessing. Re-orders go against your machine’s serial number rather than a model name, because we keep the build sheet.
We do not keep a parts depot in your country and we will not pretend to. Parts are shipped from China, and we will tell you the honest transit time before you order rather than after a breakdown.
Is there a warranty?
The warranty is the plant’s and its terms are stated in writing on the proforma invoice, per model. We do not print a period on this website, because a number we cannot enforce is worth nothing to you.
Do you have a service engineer in my country?
No. Technical support is in English on WhatsApp, with a first reply within 24 hours, China time, Monday to Saturday. Where a job needs hands on the machine, we work with your own fitter and the plant’s technical department.
A supplier who promises you a local engineer at this stage should be asked for the engineer’s name.
Due diligence
Can I inspect the machine before it is loaded?
We attend the plant before loading as standard and send you a dated report with photographs, checked against the specification item by item.
If you would rather have an independent party do it — SGS, Bureau Veritas, Intertek — name them at the order stage. We arrange plant access at your cost and their report goes to you directly.
Can I visit the plant myself?
Yes. Tell us before you book travel so we can confirm the machine is at a stage worth seeing, and so somebody who can answer technical questions is there on the day.
How do I check the company is real?
Ask us for the business licence before you pay anything. We send it on request, and what is on it is searchable by anyone in China’s National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System — the register is public and free.
Then run the test that actually protects you: the registered name has to match on the licence, on the proforma invoice, on the bank account you are asked to pay and on the bill of lading. If one of those differs, stop and ask why. Money goes missing when the account name is not the name on the invoice, and that test is worth running on every Chinese supplier, not only on us.
Do you sell to my country?
Ask us. We quote CIF or DDP to most ports, but import duty and conformity requirements differ by country and we confirm both with an inspection agent or your customs broker before quoting.
We do not publish duty rates or certificate requirements for countries we have not verified. A figure that turns out to be wrong at your border costs far more than the answer was worth.
Not answered here?
Ask on WhatsApp — it is where these conversations actually happen. Or send the model, the quantity and the port and we will come back with a landed figure.