Split a 40-ft container. Split the freight.
Ocean freight on a container costs roughly the same whether one buyer uses it or six do. So we organize six-plus buyers into one container, everyone splits the shared costs, and each buyer's shipping bill drops by 40–60% versus importing solo. A deposit reserves your slot. The container ships when it fills.
This isn't an invention — it's a buyer's consolidation, a standard freight practice. What's unusual is a store organizing it for equipment buyers and publishing the math.
How it works — three steps
- 1. Reserve a slot. Pick your item (a machine, or attachments riding in the gaps), pay a deposit. The deposit is 100% of your item's factory price plus 50% of your estimated freight share — that's what makes a slot a real commitment instead of a maybe.
- 2. The container fills. When committed freight shares cover at least 70% of the container's cost, the container is confirmed: factory orders go in, everyone gets the sailing window. We consolidate everything at origin and every item is third-party inspected before loading — you get photos of your unit.
- 3. It ships. Your freight balance is due when the vessel departs. At the US port, the container is unloaded at a transload warehouse and each buyer's item goes out by LTL truck to their door. Typical timeline: 6–9 weeks from container close to your driveway.
The worked example — six buyers, one container
Six participants, each buying a 1-ton mini excavator (factory price about $6,500 each), Shanghai to Los Angeles/Long Beach. Here's the real freight math.
Shared container costs, split six ways:
- Ocean freight, 40-ft high-cube container: $4,500 (planning rate — re-quoted per sailing)
- Export docs, lashing and securing six machines at origin: $900
- US terminal handling and documents: $700
- Drayage from port to transload warehouse: $650
- Unloading and forklift transload into six truck shipments: $900
- Shared total: $7,650 — that's $1,275 per participant.
Each participant's own costs:
- Your own customs entry (broker, single-entry bond, ISF filing): about $400
- LTL trucking to your door with liftgate: about $650
Total freight, door-to-door: about $2,325 per buyer.
Going solo, the sane way to ship one machine is your own 20-ft container: roughly $5,500–$6,500 door-to-door once you add origin charges, destination charges, drayage, unloading, customs, and trucking. The headline is simple: shipping for about $2,325 instead of $5,500 — a 40–60% cut. On a $6,500 machine, that's freight falling from most-of-the-machine's-price to about a third of it.
Attachments do even better. Buckets, forks, and augers ride in the gaps between machines at a freight share of roughly $180–$250, versus $900–$1,600 to ship one attachment solo by ocean — 75–85% off. Gap slots are sold to buyers like you or left empty; we never fill dead space with our own goods, because we never own anything in the container.
Slots, deposits, and refunds — the fine print, up front
- What we charge: a flat coordination fee per slot — $400, $750, or $1,400 depending on item class (attachment gap slot, partial slot, full machine slot). That fee is our entire take on the container. Freight itself passes through at cost with any markup disclosed. Final fee card pending Commerce sign-off — TODO.
- Deposit: 100% of your item's factory price + 50% of your estimated freight share, paid at checkout (card/ACH; wire for larger amounts).
- Confirmation trigger: the container confirms when committed freight shares reach 70% of container cost (about 4 of 6 machine slots).
- Balance due: the remaining 50% of your freight share, plus true-up to the actual quoted rate, when the vessel departs.
- Rate protection: if the real freight rate comes in more than 15% above the estimate, you can exit with a full refund of the freight portion.
- If it doesn't fill by cut-off: it rolls once to the next month's departure (you can opt out for a full refund). Still under the floor after the roll? Automatic full refund within 5 business days. You risk nothing until the container is confirmed.
- Slots are non-transferable. The name on the slot is the importer of record on the customs entry.
- Marine cargo insurance is mandatory on every buyer's shipment (roughly 0.3–0.5% of declared value — about $25–$40 on a mini excavator), built into your freight share.
You are the importer of record — here's what that means
The deeper discount exists because you take the importer's role. Each buyer gets their own house bill of lading, their own commercial invoice, their own customs entry and bond — filed by one customs broker we arrange for the whole group at a group rate, using a pre-filled paperwork pack we prepare for you. Your duty is your own and is the same duty you'd pay importing any other way; we show the estimate before you commit.
Two honest consequences of that structure:
- Our paid job is coordination, not warranty. Factory warranty and defect-credit terms — which we negotiate into the supplier agreement — run directly to you. If something's wrong, we do the claim legwork with the factory on your behalf, but group-buy goods don't carry our store warranty or return policy. Full detail on Claims & Warranty.
- If your item fails pre-shipment inspection, it doesn't ship — it's replaced or refunded before the container closes on it. The container never waits for one item; a bumped item rolls to the next sailing with its freight share refunded or rolled.
Tracking
Every container gets a public status page: fill meter while it's open, then live milestones — confirmed, in production, inspected, loaded, vessel departed, arrived, customs, out for delivery — shared by everyone in the container. You'll never have to email us to ask where the ship is.
Join the waitlist
Containers open when a region and category hit critical mass, and the waitlist is how we know where to open one. Joining is free and commits you to nothing: tell us your machine type, what you're looking to buy, and your region. When a container opens that fits, you get first crack at the slots.
Join the container waitlist — or open the chat and say "group buy." (Waitlist form embed to be installed with the theme — TODO.)