A sourcing comparison that stops at EXW is not a comparison. Two factories can be four percent apart on the unit and twenty percent apart once the goods are in the buyer's warehouse. The gap is usually freight mode, tariff classification, and how many times the cargo will be touched.
Price the path, not the pallet
We build the corridor in the same sheet as the quote: inland haulage, origin charges, ocean or air, destination handling, duty, and a reserve for inspection failure. If a lane is congested, the model uses a slower transit rather than last season's optimistic sailing.
A late container is a cost, even when the freight invoice looks unchanged.
Choose the market for the product
China, India, Vietnam, and the other desks we use are not interchangeable. Tooling depth, material availability, and the buyer's required certificates point to one cluster more often than a headline wage rate does. The briefing we give a client names that reason in one paragraph, then shows the landed number beside it.