FMCG Export and Trade Glossary

Using this glossary

Most of this vocabulary gets learned the expensive way. Somebody requests a EUR.1 for a market that has no agreement with the EU. Somebody reads a delivered price as a duty-paid price. Somebody discovers what detention costs a fortnight after the ship berthed. Each entry here therefore does two jobs: it says what the term means, and it says where the money is.

Entries run alphabetically. Where a rule varies genuinely — between carriers, between destinations, between agreements — the entry says so rather than manufacturing a precision the trade does not possess. Fuller treatments sit in the Incoterms 2020 reference, the export document reference and the loading reference for pallets and containers.

A

Access2Markets — Where to establish, before agreeing a price, whether the duty saving you have assumed actually exists. Run by the European Commission and searchable by product code and destination, it returns the applicable tariff, the rules of origin and the form of proof the relevant agreement expects.

Ambient — Goods that survive a warehouse and a container without cooling. Nearly all of a wholesale consumer range qualifies, which is what makes mixed loads cheap to assemble. Tolerance of heat is a separate question entirely: chocolate is ambient and still resents an equatorial sailing in August.

B

Batch code / lot code — Printed by the manufacturer, this ties an individual pack back to the run that produced it. Its value becomes apparent exactly once, during a withdrawal, when somebody has to answer within hours whether you hold affected stock. Insist it stays readable on the shipper case and gets written onto the packing list.

Best-before date — A quality marker, not a safety one. Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 keeps it separate from the use-by date, which appears on highly perishable food; past a use-by date, food is deemed unsafe as a matter of law, whereas past a best-before date it may still lawfully be sold. Commercially the two often behave the same way, which is why the distinction gets missed.

Bill of lading — Issued by the ocean carrier as a receipt, and doubling as evidence of the carriage contract. In negotiable form it goes further and becomes a document of title, with cargo released against a surrendered original. Sellers use that as security; buyers pay demurrage when an original is still sitting in a drawer in Spain.

Bonded warehouse — The trade's name for customs warehousing. Goods sit under customs supervision while duty and import VAT are parked rather than forgiven: the charge falls due on release into free circulation, and never arises at all if the consignment is re-exported. Before assuming it fixes a cash-flow problem, read what bonded storage can and cannot do.

C

Certificate of Origin — Establishes where goods were produced, for purposes that have nothing to do with reducing duty. Chambers of commerce issue it across the EU; in Spain, the Cámaras de Comercio. Read it for what it is silent about — it attests neither to authenticity nor to any entitlement to a preferential rate.

CFR — Freight belongs to the seller, cover belongs to you. The seller books and pays the ocean leg to a discharge port you name and handles export formalities; from the moment the goods are aboard at the loading port the risk is yours, and no party is required to buy insurance. Sensible where you already run an open cargo policy.

CIF — CFR with a policy bolted on, at a minimum of 110 per cent of contract value in the contract currency. Read that obligation twice. The default level is Institute Cargo Clauses (C), a narrow named-perils form, and the risk transfer point has not moved: it is still on board at the loading port, not on arrival.

CMR consignment note — Governs European road legs under the 1956 Geneva convention. Treat it as evidence rather than currency: it records the carriage contract and the condition of the goods at handover, it confers no title, and its loss does not dissolve the contract it evidences.

Combined Nomenclature — Eight digits where the Harmonized System stops at six. The EU runs its Common Customs Tariff on it, and TARIC bolts further measures on top.

Commercial invoice — The document everything else in the file is checked against, which is why it has to be right before anything else is issued. It carries parties, goods, quantities, values, currency and the delivery term, and destination customs build the dutiable value from it. Descriptions written for your buying team rather than for a classifier cause most of the trouble.

Consolidation — Loading several lines, brands or categories as a single shipment so that one freight charge, one set of documents and one entry cover all of it. The mechanics are covered on our logistics page.

CSC plate — Fixed to the container door under the International Convention for Safe Containers, stating that unit's tare, its maximum operating gross mass and its test loads. Where a published table and the plate disagree, plan from the plate.

Cube-out — Running out of space before running out of weight. It is the normal condition of consumer goods, because a case of crisps or nappies is mostly air, and it is why such a container arrives noticeably light.

Customs value — The figure destination duty is calculated against. It begins with the invoice and, depending on the delivery term and the country's own valuation rules, may absorb freight and insurance as well. Identical pallets quoted FOB and quoted DAP can therefore attract different duty.

D

DAP — Carriage to an address you name, with the goods left on the arriving vehicle ready to be taken off, and risk passing at that point. What sits outside it is the border: clearance, duty and import taxes remain yours throughout. Reading “delivered” as “duty paid” is the most expensive misunderstanding on this page.

DDP — The single rule that makes the seller responsible for import clearance and liable for the duty, together with destination taxes unless the contract provides otherwise. Performing it properly means operating inside a tax system where the seller has no standing, which is why we quote DAP instead and say what remains to be done.

Demurrage — Billed by carrier or terminal once a box overstays its free time inside the terminal. It accrues against the consignee irrespective of who caused the delay.

Detention — The equivalent charge for holding the carrier's equipment outside the terminal, usually in your own yard while it is being stripped. Carriers and regions swap the two words around freely, so take your working definition from the booking tariff rather than from any glossary.

DPU — Delivered at Place Unloaded, which took over from DAT in the 2020 edition. Uniquely among the eleven rules, it puts the physical act of unloading on the seller.

E

EORI — A single identifier for a business across the whole Union, allocated by the member state where it is established. Nothing can be declared for import, export or transit in the EU without one.

EPAL — The association behind the exchangeable European pallet pool and the publisher of its specifications. A European load plan is designed around the EPAL 1: 1,200 by 800 mm, 144 mm tall, roughly 25 kg empty, rated for a 1,500 kg safe working load.

EUR.1 movement certificate — The instrument that converts EU manufacture into a smaller duty bill, wherever an agreement between the EU and your market provides for one. The exporter applies and the exporting country's customs authority endorses. What it certifies is compliance with that agreement's origin rules, and those follow the factory rather than the trademark.

EUR-MED — The pan-Euro-Mediterranean variant, which additionally signals whether cumulation with another party to that system has been used. Your destination's agreement dictates which instrument is acceptable; the seller has no say in it.

Exhaustion of rights — Why an unappointed wholesaler may lawfully resell branded goods at all. Once particular goods have been put on the EEA market by the trade mark owner or with that owner's consent, the mark can no longer be deployed to block their onward sale inside that area. Compared with the alternatives in genuine, parallel, grey and counterfeit.

EXW — The seller's job finishes with the goods packed and available at its own gate, neither loaded nor cleared. Loading, the export declaration, road haulage, terminal charges, the sea leg and import clearance all become yours, and risk sits with you from the moment the goods are at your disposal. The named place carries weight: our EXW quotations read EXW Madrid, meaning the warehouse rather than a Spanish port.

F

FCA — Written for the way containers actually move. The seller clears the goods for export and hands them to a carrier you nominate; where the handover point is the seller's own premises, delivery occurs once they are loaded onto your vehicle. The 2020 edition also allows the parties to arrange an on-board transport document, which removes the usual reason for stretching FOB.

FCL — A container booked for your cargo alone. Since the rate attaches to the box rather than to what goes in it, an under-built load costs precisely what a full one costs.

FOB — The seller puts the goods on board at a port you name and clears them for export; from that instant the risk and the ocean contract are both yours. It was drafted for sea and inland waterway carriage, so a handover at an inland depot sits awkwardly within it and FCA is the honest alternative.

Form M — Nigeria registers the transaction before the goods sail. The importer raises it with an authorised dealer bank on the Central Bank of Nigeria's trade portal, and every later document is reconciled against it, so the pro-forma and the eventual invoice have to describe identical goods. The order of operations is what matters on this corridor.

Free time — The allowance before demurrage or detention starts running, whether the box is standing in the terminal or in your own yard. Contractual rather than standard, and it shifts with port, carrier and service contract.

G

Grey market — A vague label stretched across at least three distinct situations carrying three distinct levels of risk: lawful parallel trade described pejoratively, goods first marketed outside the EEA and brought in without consent, and plain specification mismatch with no legal dimension. Because it conflates them, the phrase should prompt a question rather than settle one.

Groupage — Your pallets travel in a container shared with other shippers' cargo. Cheaper to begin with than a full box, dearer per unit, slower, and handled more often.

Gross and net weight — Net counts the goods alone; gross adds packaging, the pallet and any securing material. Both belong on the packing list, and the gross figure has to survive comparison with what the carrier was told and with the verified gross mass.

H

Halal attestation — Issued by a certifying body, and useful only as far as the destination authority's recognition of that body extends. Confirm recognition, not certification.

HS code — Six digits from the World Customs Organization, applied by more than two hundred countries and economies as the foundation of their tariffs and their trade statistics; national systems extend it further, which in the EU means the Combined Nomenclature and TARIC. Where a product lands in that structure settles its duty rate, any restrictions on it, and which certificates it will need.

I

IMDG Code — The IMO rulebook for dangerous goods carried by sea: classification, packing, marking, paperwork, and how items must be kept apart inside the box. ADR does the equivalent work on European road legs. Aerosols and parts of a cleaning range fall inside both.

Importer of record — Whoever is legally answerable at destination for the declaration, the duty and local compliance. Under every rule except DDP that is the buyer, DAP included, which regularly surprises people.

Incoterms — Eleven three-letter rules from the International Chamber of Commerce, dividing cost, risk and obligation between the two sides of a sale. Their limits matter as much as their content: nothing about payment is settled, no title moves, and only CIF and CIP compel anybody to insure. A rule quoted without a named place and an edition is incomplete.

ISPM 15 — The phytosanitary regime covering wood packaging. Raw wood above 6 mm thick must be treated — heat treatment at a 56 °C core for at least 30 minutes, dielectric heating at 60 °C for 30 minutes, or methyl bromide fumigation — and then branded with the IPPC symbol, a country code, the producer's code and the treatment code. Plywood and comparable manufactured boards sit outside it.

L

Landed cost — Everything it takes to get goods onto your racking, added up: the goods themselves, then freight, cargo insurance, brokerage, duty and import taxes, inland transport, and the finance and currency cost of the whole exercise. Two suppliers quoting on different terms can only honestly be compared here.

LCL — Part-load ocean freight, sharing a box. It works for proving a range and stops working as volume grows, because the rate is normally struck on whichever is greater, volume or weight.

Letter of credit — A bank promises to pay, but strictly against documents matching the credit. Since it inspects paper rather than cargo, a mistyped description or a date out of sequence will hold the money on a shipment that is physically flawless.

M

MOQ — The floor below which a supplier will not trade a given line. It moves by line and by market rather than existing as one company-wide number, which is why it is answered at enquiry rather than published.

MRN — Allocated by customs on acceptance of a declaration. It follows the consignment and is the evidence that the export went through properly.

N

Non-preferential origin — Where goods count as originating when no trade agreement is in play. It drives most-favoured-nation treatment, trade defence measures, quotas and origin marking, and it saves nothing on duty. A chamber-issued Certificate of Origin is its proof.

Notify party — Named beside the consignee on the transport document as the party the carrier informs when the ship arrives. In licensed markets, any mismatch between these names and the licence holder is enough to freeze the consignment.

O

Origin declaration — Preference claimed in text rather than on a stamped form, with the exporter writing the agreement's prescribed wording onto the invoice or another commercial document. Below €6,000 of originating products any exporter may do it; above that, only an approved exporter. The wording itself is the instrument, so an approximation of it is worth nothing.

Original manufacturer packaging — The pack exactly as the manufacturer sealed it, still bearing their coding and their mandatory information, never opened and never relabelled. Break it and two things break together: the batch trail, and the trade mark position.

P

PAAR — Issued by Nigeria Customs against a registered import transaction, setting out the classification and valuation your entry will be assessed on. Obtaining it before arrival is the entire design: a tariff-heading argument should be had while the box is still at sea.

Packing list — Cartons, pallets, marks, dimensions, net and gross weights, and which goods sit where, with no prices anywhere on it. This is the sheet an inspector works from during an examination, and its weights need to match the transport document rather than roughly resemble it.

Parallel import — Genuine stock arriving by a route the brand owner never appointed. Lawful within the EEA wherever rights are exhausted; beyond it, the destination's own law decides, and the answer can differ depending which way the goods are travelling.

Payload — What a specific container may lawfully carry: its rated maximum gross mass less its own tare. Builds and operators differ, so what binds your load is whatever is stamped on the unit you actually receive — the reason every container figure in our loading reference carries a caveat.

Preferential origin — Origin as defined by a particular trade agreement, and the basis for a reduced or zero rate at destination. Which proof serves — EUR.1, EUR-MED, an origin declaration, a REX statement on origin — follows from that agreement. Where no agreement exists, no document manufactures a preference.

Pro-forma invoice — The seller's offer set out formally: goods, quantities, price, delivery term and named place, payment terms, and the documents that will accompany the shipment. Banks, licences and transaction registrations are all raised from it, so anything left vague here propagates through everything downstream.

R

Reefer — A container that refrigerates itself once powered. An ambient range almost never justifies one; where heat genuinely threatens a line, changing the routing or the sailing month is the cheaper lever.

REX — Self-certification of preferential origin. Under its own REX number, a registered exporter writes a statement on origin onto an invoice or other commercial paper. Because those registrations are checkable, destination authorities will accept a declaration the exporter drafted itself.

S

Safety data sheet — The reference sheet for a chemical mixture, covering hazards, handling, storage and transport classification, and the companion to the hazard labelling that appears on laundry and cleaning lines. Forwarders want it before confirming a booking, and aerosols and certain formulations additionally pull the consignment into dangerous-goods rules.

Sea waybill — Non-negotiable, consigned to a named party and released against proof of identity. Nothing has to be couriered, so it moves faster than a bill of lading, at the cost of the security an original bill gives the seller.

Shelf-life on arrival — What remains on the clock when goods reach you, after production, storage and the voyage have each taken a share. Retail listings turn on it, so put it in writing beside the quantity being offered; it moves with the line and the allocation, and is confirmed on the pro-forma.

SONCAP — Nigeria's pre-shipment conformity route, operated by the Standards Organisation of Nigeria through agents in the supplying country and covering products within SON's defined scope. Because the assessment happens before departure, cargo arriving without the certificate cannot be regularised at the port.

T

TARIC — The Commission's integrated tariff database. Look up a code and it returns the EU-side position together with every measure attached. What it will not tell you is the rate your own authority applies on import.

Terminal handling charges — What terminals bill for shifting a container between quay and yard, at both ends of the voyage. Whether a quoted rate has already absorbed them turns on the delivery term and on the carrier's own tariff, and the figure is not the same at either of the two Spanish gateways we load from.

Transit procedure — Goods travel under customs control from one point to another with duty, tax and commercial policy measures held in suspense, so that the entry is made at destination instead of at the frontier. External transit carries non-Union goods; internal transit moves Union goods across non-EU territory. A guarantee backs both.

V

VGM — Since 1 July 2016, under SOLAS regulation VI/2 as amended by IMO resolution MSC.380(94), no packed container may be lifted aboard unless the shipper has verified its gross mass and declared it to carrier and terminal in time for the stow plan. Two methods are accepted: weigh the packed box on calibrated, certified equipment, or weigh every package and item going into it — pallets, dunnage and securing material counted — then add the tare, by a certified method.

W

Weigh-out — Reaching the mass limit while the container is still visibly unfilled. Water and PET soft drinks, glass, canned goods and liquid detergents all get there; the rest of a consumer range rarely does.

Checking any of this against the body that owns it

Definitions are orientation, not authority. Form M, PAAR, SONCAP and everything touching duty describe frameworks that get amended, and none of them should be taken from a supplier's page when the consequence arrives at your border. Preferential origin belongs to Access2Markets; the EU-side tariff position belongs to TARIC; what you will actually pay on import belongs to your own customs authority and to nobody else.

Language drifts as well. Carriers and regions disagree about demurrage and detention. Free time is negotiated rather than fixed. Minimum order quantity means whatever the supplier saying it means by it. Wherever the difference has a price attached, look in your booking documents and your pro-forma instead of a definition.

The three questions this vocabulary reduces to

Before a pro-forma is issued, almost all of the above collapses into three. On which delivery term is the price quoted, and to which named place? Which proof of origin does your market's arrangement with the EU actually accept? And what does the document set need to contain to satisfy the clearing agent at your port of entry?

If the corridor is new to you, the markets we already ship into and the queries that come up before a first order cover the practical ground. With a range in mind, send the destination, the lines and the term and the export desk replies within one business day on listed brands.