Questions importers ask
Questions we are actually asked, answered directly — including the ones our competitors avoid.
How we work
- How do you get paid?
- A commission on order value, agreed in writing before we start and unchanged after. The rate depends on the product, the order size and what you actually ask us to handle. No subscription, no search fee, nothing charged for a quotation — if nothing ships, nothing is owed.
- Why not deal with the factory directly?
- You can, and many do. The difference shows on the first shipment: who verifies the factory actually exists, who reads the specification before production rather than after, and who notices that the document the exporter sent does not cover your goods at all. Most losses in foreign trade do not come from a bad price — they come from a missing paper discovered at the port.
- What is your minimum order?
- None from our side — the minimum comes from the factory and differs by product. In practice a 20-foot container is the smallest economic unit for sea freight; below that, goods travel consolidated with others at a higher cost per tonne. Tell us the quantity you actually want and we will say plainly whether it is worth shipping.
- How long does it take from first contact to delivery?
- A quotation within days. Production depends on the product and the season. Sea freight to the Gulf and Egypt is one to two weeks from port, northern Europe longer; road to Iraq, Syria and Jordan is much faster. The part that usually runs late is not the shipping — it is the documents nobody asked for in time.
Money
- Do I pay you, or the factory?
- The factory, directly. The price of the goods moves between your bank and the supplier's bank, by transfer or letter of credit, and never through us. That protects you: if we stopped trading tomorrow, your financial relationship with the factory would be untouched.
- What are the usual payment terms?
- They follow order size. Small orders are paid in advance; mid-size orders as a deposit plus a balance before shipment or against documents; large orders under an irrevocable letter of credit. Do not accept a term that has you paying in full before you have seen a shipping document — whoever recommends it.
Specification and quality
- Who guarantees the goods match what was agreed?
- The written specification first: percentage, weight, packing, shelf life, certificates — as numbers, not adjectives. Then pre-shipment inspection by an independent body, at your cost and reporting in your name. "Excellent quality" is a phrase no one can enforce anywhere.
- Can the goods be produced under my own brand?
- Yes, and it is one of the most common requests. Turkish factories are used to private label; the minimum is usually higher than for the factory's own brand because the packaging is made for you. The label has to match the destination's rules — language, dating, nutrition values — and getting it wrong is among the commonest reasons a shipment is refused.
Paperwork
- Which documents will I need?
- On every shipment: a commercial invoice, a packing list, a certificate of origin and a transport document. Food adds a health certificate. After that it depends on the destination: the Gulf asks for halal to the GSO standard, the EU needs EUR.1 rather than A.TR for agricultural goods, and Saudi Arabia requires the importer to be registered with the SFDA before shipment. There are 36 free guides on this site, one per document.
- The exporter sent me an A.TR certificate — is that enough?
- If your goods are food, usually not. A.TR proves free circulation inside the customs union and covers industrial and processed agricultural goods; olive oil, hazelnuts, dried fruit and basic agricultural produce sit outside it. For those the document is EUR.1. And A.TR cannot be issued retroactively, so the question belongs before shipment, not after.
- Do you handle customs clearance in my country?
- No. Clearance at destination is done by a licensed broker in your own country. We handle the Turkish side and hand you a complete file your customs will accept. If you have no broker yet, tell us the country and we will tell you what to ask before you pick one.
Türkiye and you
- Do I need a company in Türkiye to import from it?
- No. You import in the name of your own company at home; it is the Turkish exporter who needs a registration and a tax number here. Setting up in Türkiye helps for other reasons — residence, buying at domestic prices, exporting yourself — and that is my original field if you want to discuss it.
- Will you give me the factory's name?
- On contract, yes — you buy from the factory, not from us, and its name is on every document. Before that we do not publish free factory lists: choosing the right factory for your product and your market is the work itself, not a preface to it.
- Where are you, and who am I speaking to?
- An office in Fatih, Istanbul, at a fixed address printed in the footer of this site, and one person accountable for every transaction: Rabie AK, financial advisory and export operations since 2016. Not an anonymous platform — deliberately.
And a separate guide for every document — Export guides
Your question is not here?
Send the product, the quantity and the destination, and you get an answer about your case rather than the general one.