Pre-Shipment Inspection: What It Is and When to Book One
You cannot stand on the factory floor for every order, so a pre-shipment inspection is how you check the goods before they leave. An inspector visits the factory near the end of production, samples the order, and reports back while the supplier still has time and reason to fix anything wrong. It is one of the cheapest forms of insurance in importing, and the timing is what makes it work. Booked at the right moment it gives you leverage. Booked too late it gives you a well photographed record of a problem you can no longer do anything about.
What is a pre-shipment inspection?
A pre-shipment inspection, often shortened to PSI, is an independent check of a completed or nearly completed order. A third party inspector goes to the factory, pulls a random sample of the goods using a standard sampling method, and checks them against your specification. You get a report, usually within a day, with a clear pass or fail and photographs of anything found.
What the inspector checks
- Quantity, to confirm the order is actually complete rather than mostly complete.
- Workmanship and appearance, looking for defects against an agreed quality standard.
- Measurements and specification, checking sizes, weights and materials match what you ordered.
- Function, where relevant, such as zips, seams, switches or basic use tests.
- Packaging, labelling and barcodes, which are easy for a factory to get wrong and expensive for you to fix at the other end.
- Carton and drop tests, to see whether the packing will survive the trip.
The inspector can only check against what you gave them. If your specification is a two line email, the report will be thin. If it includes an approved sample, a measurement chart, a labelling guide and a photographed list of what counts as a defect, the report is worth something.
The timing that matters
Book the inspection when production is around 80 to 100 percent complete, and importantly before you release the balance payment. That is the leverage. If the inspection fails, the supplier has to rework the goods while they are still waiting to be paid. Inspect after you have paid in full and shipped, and your only option is a slow claim after the fact against a factory that already has your money.
This has a practical consequence for your schedule. The inspection needs to sit far enough before the ex-factory date that a fail still leaves room for rework. Booking it two days before the container is due to load technically satisfies the process and gives you no options at all. Three to five working days before ex-factory is a more useful gap.
What it costs
Most inspection firms charge a fixed rate per inspector day, and a typical order is covered in a single day. Set against the value of a full shipment, and the cost of shipping and then dealing with a defective order, it is usually a small fraction of what is at risk. On a shipment worth tens of thousands, the inspection is normally a fraction of one percent of the order value. The question is rarely whether you can afford it. It is whether you remembered to book it.
What happens when it fails
A fail is not a disaster, it is information arriving in time. Usually one of four things follows: the factory sorts the batch and removes the defective units, the factory reworks them, you accept the batch with a negotiated discount, or you reject it outright. Decide in advance which of those you would accept, and put the re-inspection cost on the supplier in your terms, because otherwise a second visit becomes an argument on top of a delay.
When a PSI pays off
- The first order with a new supplier, when you have no track record to trust.
- High value orders, where a quality problem is expensive to absorb.
- Quality sensitive products, where returns and reviews punish defects hard.
- Any product where the specification changed during production.
- Any time there is a balance payment still to release, since that is your leverage to get problems fixed.
The reverse is also worth saying. On a small repeat order from a factory that has passed cleanly several times, an inspection every single time can be more habit than value. Keep a record of how each supplier performs and let that record decide, rather than inspecting everything or nothing.
The inspection fee is a real line in your landed cost, so include it when you price. It is also worth recording how each supplier performs over time, so your repeat orders go to the factories that consistently pass.
Add your inspection fee alongside freight, duty and tax in the free landed cost calculator to see your true per unit cost. Open the free landed cost calculator
The bottom line
A pre-shipment inspection turns quality from a hope into a check you actually control, as long as you book it before the balance payment and early enough that a fail still leaves time to act. Use it on new suppliers and high value orders, give the inspector a specification worth checking against, treat the fee as part of your landed cost, and keep track of which factories keep passing. It is a small spend that stops a bad shipment before it ships.
Related guides
- Your Supplier Missed the Ex-Factory Date. What Now?
- How to Get a Realistic Ex-Factory Date Out of a Supplier
- Wholesale Pricing for Importers: Setting Your Price Tiers From Landed Cost
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