What costs less than a Harbor Freight Winch?

A Hi Lift Jack costs less then a HF Winch

 

http://www.mechanicalcaveman.com/best-cheap-winch-on-the-market-review/
This is what google brought up, still pretty affordable but maybe a little more reputable than an unknown Chinese company.

 

It's only unknown because people there is little to no marketing, which lowers cost, and people are scared to give it a shot.

 

What costs less than a HF winch?

a broken HF winch

 

So I am pulling the trigger on this. Why? Because through the negotiation process they offered to send me a "sample" 9500 lb winch, synthetic line, hook, aluminum hawse fair lead, wired remote, wireless remote, 500 amp solenoid, basically a complete package, for the price of ... $1

Yes, I still have to pay shipping, and I am negotiating that part now, but it should be less than $50. The negotiation isn't really about price, but at what point I (or another shipping company like UPS or FedEx) assume responsibility for the shipment.

 

WUUTTT

 

I am still worried that something is going to make this fall through ... LOL!

 

The scary part is this all started with me just googling winches. I just realized that if this goes through, I still need a bumper to mount it on! LMAO! This is craziness ...

 

Yeah, no question for $51. It wouldn't be difficult to find something to use it for.

 

So as it turns out the $1 was a typo on their part. Price is actually $188.00. I knew that price was too good to be true, but still at $188, it's still a good price. The shipping business though, jeez, talk about complex. I could use FedEx and it would speed things up dramatically. Like 3-5 days from China to my house. But the cost! If you ever buy from overseas, don't use the express option. Seriously, a single 62 pound package (1 winch) is nearly $300 for express shipping. So now I am talking with import brokers and I have to do a lot of the paperwork myself. I can see why people don't do this every day, but I am still trying to move forward.

 

Please keep updating.

Screen shots of paperwork nightmare would be nice as well.

 

I will get all of the forms once I settle on a broker and I will keep updating. From the brokers I have talked to, there is a declaration form, and EPA certification form, a letter of certification stating it's [edit] not [/edit] a dangerous chemical, an animal, an explosive, etc ... and a form for dept. of homeland security as well as shipping paperwork and forms for the port authority if I choose to ship by sea. I am hoping to find a broker that can take care of most, if not all, of the paperwork for me. I will probably have to pay for that service though.

 

Who knows, if I can come out of this with a decent deal I may try it again. I will say though, it's a bit stressful, but most of that is because I have never done anything like this before and I really have no idea what I am doing.

They did say I can order more than one, so I am waiting for shipping quotes for 1, 2 and 3 winches to be shipped. Though I will probably only order 1. After this first order though, I will have to order at least 20 at a time. However, I really only need 1

 

This is the point I am currently at with Ningbo PuLi on the winches. You can see where it says $1.00 on the left, but in the messaging part she says $188.

 

Update:

So as it turns out, air freight is even more expensive ($255 per item), and you have to have a minimum quantity to ship by sea. If I order 20 at a time, that gets them to a port in Los Angels for around $25 each, plus the $188 per item. That doesn't count the broker fees, or shipping them off the docks, either to my house or to a warehouse, or customers or whatever. Turns out, express shipping at $215 is in fact the cheapest for a single or a few items, mainly because FedEx handles all of the import/export fees as part of the cost. You never even see the paper work.

So $188 for the winch + $215 for the shipping + $30 for bank fees (currency exchange and the like all handled by citibank) = $433. You can get a smitty built for $379 on Amazon with free shipping, without prime.

 

Thanks for updating. I was pretty sure that the fees where gonna put the kybosh on the deal. I did enjoy the thread.

 

What I have learned. You need a broker to make this work. For a few items, FedEx is the cheapest, and on the shippers FedEx account. Getting my own quote from FedEx was $613 for shipping a single winch and DHL was $645.

Before I get into brokers, I need to talk about sea freight. It is cheap, but you need to ship at least a pallet. This is called "Less Than Container". It costs $500 per pallet to ship, depending on weight, but for this exercise it is $500. There are 20 winches per pallet.

So how does a broker work? First, they need to be licensed, an extensive process from what I could gather to include obtaining a bond of at least $10k. So becoming a broker is just not feasible. They will handle the delivery at the port of your choice and charge around $175. All this does is get your cargo off the boat and through customs. Once that is done you have until midnight, or 12 hours (whichever is shorter) to remove your cargo from the port. A broker can arrange shipping, you can arrange your own, or you can pick it up yourself. Charleston, SC is my closest port, so I could feasibly rent a small trailer for pickup. If I miss the deadline to remove the product for any reason, it is another $500 port fee and more work for the broker so added fees there as well. I would still need to ship these out to people as they are purchased. That cost is variable.

So, you have 20 winches at $188 each which is $3760. The port fees of $500 putting you at $4260. The Broker fee of $175 puts you at $4435. This puts you at $221.75 per winch, and it is still sitting at the port, and you have 20 of them. Switching from a winch with synthetic line to steel cable doesn't actually save you any money as they weigh more, so there is a higher shipping cost.

When ordering small quantities, FedEx acts s the end-to-end shipper and the broker. They also use air freight and their own terminals which eliminates the port fees, mostly. They just burry it with the shipping cost. Shipping a pallet via air freight is really expensive and works out to $255 per winch, just for shipping.

 

Yeah it was fun to try. I stayed up all night working on this, trying to find some way to make it work with a single winch. It just isn't going to happen.

So to answer the question this thread started with, What is cheaper than a HF Winch? Nothing. LOL!

 

Glad to see this come full circle, sucks that it didn't work out for $1 lol.

 

Subd for outcome