Most buyers who import or manufacture from ASEAN compare FOB prices and are surprised by the invoice that arrives three months later. Landed cost is where sourcing decisions are actually made, and in a multi-category program the model has to hold for a 40 kg steel bracket and a 12 g cosmetic sachet at the same time.
The line items
Build one spreadsheet, one row per SKU, with these columns:
- Ex-works or FOB unit price — and note which, because the difference is real money.
- Tooling and setup, amortised over a realistic first-year volume rather than the volume you hope for.
- Packaging — inner, master carton, pallet. Frequently 3–8% of landed cost and frequently left out.
- Inland transport to port, plus origin handling and export documentation.
- Ocean or air freight, per SKU based on the greater of weight or volume.
- Insurance on the CIF value.
- Destination port charges, customs brokerage and delivery to your warehouse.
- Duty, at your destination HS code — and the preferential rate if a free trade agreement applies and your origin documentation qualifies.
- Testing and certification amortised per unit: lab reports, CE or UKCA files, FDA or CPSC requirements.
- Inspection cost per shipment.
- Defect and rework allowance — a real percentage based on your history, not zero.
- Working capital cost for the days between deposit and revenue.
The two mistakes that distort multi-category models
Averaging freight. In a mixed container, a bulky-but-light category subsidises a dense one if you allocate freight by unit count. Allocate by chargeable weight or cubic metres and the true cost per category appears — sometimes reversing which product looked profitable.
Ignoring duty differences. Categories carry very different duty rates in the US, UK, EU and Australia. A 2% line and a 12% line inside the same container behave completely differently, and preferential FTA treatment under ATIGA, EVFTA, RCEP or CPTPP only applies where rules of origin are satisfied and documented.
Where consolidation changes the answer
Multi-category buyers often assume several partial shipments are unavoidable. They usually are not. Consolidating goods from several factories into a single full container typically improves cost per unit meaningfully, but the bigger benefit is that collections arrive complete, so a launch is not held hostage by the smallest item in the assortment.
Sanity-checking the model
Before committing, pressure-test three scenarios: freight up 40%, defect rate double your assumption, and volume at half your forecast. If the program only works in the optimistic case, the price you negotiated was not the problem — the structure was.
A realistic benchmark habit
Collect at least three compliant quotes per category, and treat any quote far below the others as information about missing specification rather than an opportunity. Compliant factories in ASEAN have known cost floors: material, labour, energy and testing do not disappear because a buyer pushed harder.
How TUSKO helps
TUSKO is an industrial consulting and trading team acting as your single point of contact in ASEAN. We build the landed-cost model with you, quote against verified factories in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia, consolidate mixed shipments, and handle documentation so preferential duty treatment survives customs. Our fee sits inside the price of each order, so there is no separate charge to manage.
Request a landed-cost review with your SKU list and destination market.