Terms of service

01 What we are and what we are not

MeliPrep is the trading name of 深圳市暖海科技有限公司 (Shenzhen Nuanhai Technology Co., Ltd.), a company registered in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, China.

We act as a buying agent on the customer's behalf. We buy on Chinese platforms and from suppliers following your instructions, we receive the goods at our warehouse, we check and consolidate them, and we coordinate their shipment.

We are not the manufacturer, the seller or the importer of the goods. We do not manufacture what we buy, we do not buy stock of our own to resell, and we do not hold title to the goods at any point except in order to carry out the logistics you instruct us to carry out.

We are not tax, customs or legal advisers. Any information we publish about tariffs, import regimes or certifications describes how those mechanisms work and does not constitute advice for your particular case.

02 Quotes and prices

Quotes are issued in writing and itemise the price of the product, our commission, the services contracted and an estimate of the freight. The commission is applied to the value of the goods, not to the total value of the operation.

A quote is valid for seven calendar days, or for the period stated in it. Listed prices on Chinese platforms change frequently and availability is not guaranteed until the order is placed.

Additional services are invoiced at the published price in force on the date of the order.

• If the seller's price rises after the quote is issued, we tell you and you decide before buying. We never buy above the quoted price without your express approval.
• If the price falls, the actual purchase price shown on the seller's invoice applies.
• International freight is invoiced at cost, at the carrier's rate. We do not apply a margin on transport, and you may request the carrier's original quote.

03 Payment

Payment is made in two instalments. The first payment covers the goods, our commission, the additional services contracted and the expenses incurred within China. The second covers international freight and is issued once the goods are in the warehouse and have actually been measured and weighed.

This sequence exists because the actual weight and volume of the goods are not known at the time of purchase, and without that data freight cannot be quoted accurately.

The goods are paid to the seller in yuan within China. We always pay into the account of the company named as the seller on the order, and never into a personal account or an account in the name of another company.

Our fees, the additional services and the freight are invoiced in US dollars. We do not apply an exchange rate of our own: the exchange rate applied is that of the actual purchase transaction, and we can show you the receipt.

04 Orders, changes and cancellation

There is no sign-up fee and no purchase commitment. You may request a quote and decide not to proceed at no cost, except where the work has already been carried out and has a real cost from the first day — a factory audit involving travel, a physical sample, the development of a mould — in which case only the work actually performed is invoiced.

Once the order has been placed with the seller, whether it can be cancelled depends on whether the seller has already started production. If production has not started, it can normally be cancelled; if it has started, cancellation is subject to what the seller accepts.

If the goods we receive do not correspond to what was ordered, we tell you with photographs before they leave China and you decide whether they are returned, replaced or discarded. This is the only moment at which real leverage over the seller exists, and that is why the receiving check is included in the service.

05 Checking and inspection

On receipt we check the reference, the quantity and the external condition of the packaging, and we send you photographs. This basic check is included in the commission and is not a quality inspection.

A formal inspection with attribute sampling to AQL criteria is contracted separately, has a published price and is invoiced per inspector-day. It is carried out before shipment and produces a report with an explicit conclusion on the batch.

No inspection, ours or a third party's, guarantees the total absence of defects: statistical sampling accepts a batch within an agreed defect level. It does not replace your own supplier's quality control.

06 Consolidation and storage

The first thirty calendar days of storage from the first receipt are included. After that, storage is invoiced per cubic metre per week, at the published price.

Consolidation combines orders from different suppliers into a single shipment. Consolidating may involve repacking the packages to reduce the chargeable volume, which means removing individual packaging. If you need to keep the original factory packaging, tell us before the load is closed.

We are not liable for the deterioration of goods that are inherently fragile or perishable, or that are not properly protected by the supplier for transport. We document the condition photographically at the time of receipt, and that record is the reference in the event of a discrepancy.

07 Shipping and transfer of risk

We give you the shipping options with their lead time and their actual carrier cost. You choose the route. Freight is invoiced at cost, with no margin.

The risk of loss or damage during international transit sits with the buyer, unless specific insurance has been contracted. If you arrange freight yourself with your own carrier, risk transfers at the moment the goods leave our warehouse.

Transfer of risk does not mean we leave you on your own if something goes wrong. Where we arrange the freight, we file the claim with the carrier or the insurer in your name, within the deadlines they set, and give you the photographic receiving and loading records and the packing list as evidence. Where you arrange the freight, we give you that same documentation so that your carrier or your insurer can process it. On high-value loads, we tell you before departure whether transport insurance is worth taking out.

Import clearance in the destination country is always carried out by a customs broker, customs agent or licensed customs agency in that country — never by us. Where the shipment is negotiated on DDP terms, that clearance is coordinated within the rate, but the importer of record is the person or company that has the legal capacity to be the importer of record in the destination country, and that does not change because the freight was negotiated on DDP terms.

The transit times we publish are estimates. Supply chain interruptions, national holidays, port congestion and customs inspections may alter them, and in those cases we report the delay as soon as we become aware of it.

08 Goods we do not handle

We do not buy, receive, store or transport:

• Counterfeit goods, or goods that reproduce trade marks, logos or protected designs without the authorisation of their owner.
• Products that infringe patents, registered designs or copyright.
• Goods whose import is prohibited or restricted in the destination country for which the shipment is contracted.
• Regulated products that require a licence, permit or certification that we cannot verify.
• Perishable goods, or goods requiring a cold chain.
• Live animals, plants and parts of plants, and products of animal or plant origin subject to sanitary or phytosanitary control.
• Hazardous products without the required transport documentation, including lithium batteries without a UN38.3 report or a safety data sheet covering the exact model purchased.

09 Goods you buy yourself: the buyer's responsibility

You may buy on your own account and have the supplier send the goods to our warehouse. In that case we provide a service of receipt, storage, consolidation and transport coordination for goods that are already yours.

For goods we have not purchased, we do not verify their origin, their lawfulness, or whether they respect third-party intellectual property rights. That responsibility is exclusively the buyer's.

If the goods turn out to be counterfeit or to infringe an intellectual property right, the seizure, the penalty and any claim fall on whoever imports them, irrespective of the fact that it was we who moved them.

In that case we assume no liability arising from the nature, the origin or the lawfulness of the goods.

10 Our liability and its limits

Our total liability to you for any operation is limited to the amount of the commission and the services you have actually paid for that operation.

Within that limit we assume specific obligations: the condition of the goods from the moment we receive them until we hand them over to the carrier, with the photographic receiving record as the reference; errors attributable to us — identification, labelling, repacking or dispatch of the load — and the costs they generate; and filing the claim with the carrier or the insurer on time where we arranged the freight.

We are not liable for:

• Acts or omissions of the seller, the manufacturer, the carrier, the customs broker or any other third party involved.
• Delay, detention, seizure or destruction of goods by decision of a customs or regulatory authority.
• Loss of profit, loss of market, loss of customers or any indirect damage.
• Deterioration inherent in goods that are fragile or perishable, or insufficiently packed by the supplier.
• Information about tariffs, certifications or customs regimes, which is descriptive and not advice.

11 Claims and resolution of discrepancies

If something has not gone as you expected, write to us and we will look into it. Most discrepancies are resolved in a conversation, because we have the order, the receiving photographs and the seller's invoice in front of us.

For damage or loss detected on delivery, you must notify us within the following seven calendar days of receipt, with photographs of the packaging and of the contents. Claims against the carrier are subject to strict deadlines, and once these have passed they cannot be recovered.

For discrepancies about the contents of the order, the deadline is the same and the reference is the photographic receiving record at our warehouse.

Before resorting to any formal channel, both parties undertake to attempt an amicable resolution in good faith.

12 Force majeure

We are not liable for non-performance or delay caused by circumstances beyond our reasonable control, including natural disasters, armed conflict, acts of authority, port closures, interruptions to international transport, cyber-attacks or administrative decisions affecting foreign trade.

Where any of these circumstances arises, we report it as soon as possible and agree with you how to proceed.

13 Personal data and communications

We process your data in accordance with what is described in our privacy policy. The site does not use tracking cookies or analytics tools that profile visitors, and it does not make requests to external domains.

The communications of an operation — quotes, orders, receiving and inspection reports — may be necessary in order to perform the contract and are kept for as long as is necessary to deal with possible claims.

14 Changes to these terms

We may update these terms to reflect changes in the service or in applicable regulations. The version in force is the one published on this page, with its update date.

Changes do not apply retroactively to operations already confirmed: each operation is governed by the terms in force on the date it was confirmed.