Founded in 2007, Artika For Living Inc. has grown and established businesses in over 20 countries, becoming one of the leading wholesale distributors of home furnishings and housewares.
Growth and Facing the Challenge of Reducing Operation Costs
As Artika began establishing a bigger presence and importing more products across the globe, one of the challenges they faced was gaining control over their import filings and reducing operations costs.
They found that there were two costs to look at: brokerage fees and storage fees that often incurred due to non-compliance. Like many importers, Artika was using external customs clearance services for their imports. When there is a problem with customs clearance, shipping costs could go up by hundreds or thousands of dollars. On top of these costs, the delay in getting the shipping containers released because of customs clearance problems was costing the business more money because the shipment was delayed.
The Better, Easier, Less Expensive Way
Customs agencies require that necessary data be submitted within a strict timeline, depending on the receiving country. Sometimes filing via a customs broker and/or freight forwarder to submit the data can be complicated balance of procedures and processes. If you’re not able to gather all the correct data to your broker within tight deadlines, then correcting each step in the process will cause further delays and cost you more money in the long run.
Since gaining greater control over their import filings is one of the main goals, self-filing with the help of an affordable service provider look like a good option for Artika. But for self-filing to work, the solution has to be very easy to use, affordable and reliable.
Can they find such a solution? Could this major change be the key toward huge savings and process improvement? Artika began searching for a service provider that could assist them with self-filing and found Global eTrade Services (GeTS). “We really liked that the GeTS self-filing import solutions are so user-friendly and easy to navigate,” said (name), Artika (position). The user interface is built with ease and efficiency in mind, with features like automated data population that helps reduce filing time. The savings are substantial and the compliance improvement is real.
A CBSA-approved provider with a track record of success, GeTS turned out to be a great partner for Artika. GeTS provided a dedicated team to train and guide Artika as they prepared for their testing with CBSA. In less than two months, they completed all their tests and were ready to go online.
The dedicated team continued to work with Artika, helping them resolve issues quickly and effectively, ultimately improving customer user experience.
Since implementation, Artika has cut down on operation costs while keeping their import filings accurate and on time. No more storage fees due to non-release of cargo and no more delays!
Now Artika is always on time and has eliminated paying for storage fees due to non-release of cargo.
