Landed cost is the only number that tells a mid-size buyer whether an Egyptian part-load makes money. The FOB price on the quote is a fraction of it, and the fraction changes with every product, because the fixed costs of a shared reefer are divided by pallet position rather than by value or weight. A half pallet of light herbs and a half pallet of dense pomegranate pay the same freight share. That single fact decides which products are worth loading in small volume and which are not.
The seven lines that make up landed cost
Goods at FOB. Origin inland haulage from packhouse to port. Origin terminal handling. Ocean freight with its surcharges. Destination terminal handling, clearance and documentation. Import duty where it applies. Delivery from port to your warehouse. Add an eighth if you are honest with yourself, which is a shrink allowance for the cartons that will not sell at full price. Insurance sits on top and is usually a fraction of one per cent of the invoice value. VAT is normally excluded because it is recoverable, but check that in your own market before you build the model.
A worked example: half a pallet of pomegranate to Jebel Ali
The figures below are illustrative and rounded, using a 40 ft high-cube reefer with 20 pallet positions sailing from Alexandria. Substitute your own quotes, but keep the structure.
| Cost line | Charged on | Per container | Your half pallet |
|---|---|---|---|
| Goods, FOB | Per carton | Varies | USD 540 (60 x 9.00) |
| Ocean freight and surcharges | Pallet position | USD 4,400 | USD 110 |
| Origin haulage and THC | Pallet position | USD 600 | USD 15 |
| Destination THC, clearance, docs | Pallet position | USD 700 | USD 17.50 |
| Port to warehouse delivery | Pallet position | USD 400 | USD 10 |
| Import duty | Per cent of CIF | 0% under GAFTA | USD 0 |
| Total cost | Sum | – | USD 692.50 |
| Saleable after 3% shrink | Cartons | – | 58 cartons, 261 kg |
| Landed cost | Per unit | – | USD 11.94 per carton, USD 2.65 per kg |
What the number shows that the FOB price hides
Goods were USD 9.00 per carton at FOB. They land at USD 11.94, a mark-up of 33 per cent before a single sale is made. Of the USD 152.50 in logistics, USD 110 is ocean freight charged on space, which means the same half pallet holding 90 smaller cartons instead of 60 would carry USD 1.69 of freight per carton rather than USD 2.54. Packing density is a pricing lever for a part-load buyer, and it is worth asking the exporter what the densest legitimate pack format for the product is. How many positions a mixed reefer actually offers is set out in our note on pallet space planning in an Egyptian mixed reefer.
The Incoterm changes who pays, not what it costs
Moving from FOB to CFR or CIF does not remove any line in the table. It moves lines from your column to the exporter’s and folds them into the unit price. That is convenient, and it also makes the freight component invisible, so compare a CFR offer against your own FOB build before accepting it. The definitions themselves are published by the International Chamber of Commerce as the Incoterms 2020 rules.
Build it before you order, not after
A landed cost model built after arrival is a post-mortem. Built before, it tells you which of the six products on your shortlist can carry the freight and which cannot. Ask for the pack format, carton net weight and cartons per pallet in the same message as the price, which is one of the reasons our eight-line RFQ format asks for them. Peivana is the exporter here rather than a neutral consultant, and the example figures above are illustrative rather than a live quotation.
Get the numbers for your own shortlist
Send the products, the destination port and the volume you have in mind and we will return FOB prices with carton weights and cartons per pallet so you can build the model yourself. WhatsApp +20 10 9911 1918.