Paying for 20ft container

Are all 50 SKUs being consolidated by the trading company into one shipment, or are they shipping from multiple locations?

If the trading company is sourcing from multiple factories and consolidating everything into one shipment, then the key question is whether the suppliers behind the order have been properly verified.

Many importers use Trade Assurance because they don't have visibility into the factories they're ultimately buying from.

Another approach is to independently verify the manufacturers and suppliers involved before payment is made. Once you're confident in who you're buying from, standard T/T payments are often sufficient and can avoid the additional platform costs.

Big business would have fully vetted the supplier. If the amount is enough you may be able to do a L/C otherwise there is always going to be some risk. If 6% is too much you should look for other products.

For a first container, I would focus more on risk than on saving 3%.

If the supplier is verified and you have confidence in the factory, a standard T/T payment structure (30% deposit, 70% before shipment after inspection) is often used.

If this is a new supplier and you haven’t worked with them before, the cost of Trade Assurance can be cheaper than dealing with a bad shipment.

Are you buying directly from a manufacturer or a trading company?

Maybe you could choose a reliable freight forwarder who can help you inspect the goodsIf you're interested, we can talk about it. We also have our own warehouse and a trucking team in Hamburg that can transport from the port right to your company's door

Highly suspect they are using ying-yang pricing, i.e. they give you an inflated price from the factory and add 2% to that (bringing the total to any number you can guess).

The only way to reduce payment costs (if doing it legally) is paying via wire transfer. If you want added protections, you pay for that. But ultimately if you cannot even trust your sourcing agent then you should not be doing business with them at all.

You should consider working through a trading company.

Typically, they can offer payment terms of 30% advance and 70% against shipping documents.

If you prefer not to use T/T for the balance payment, you can explore safer alternatives such as CAD (Cash Against Documents) or D/P (Documents Against Payment).

If you prefer not to place an upfront deposit, a 100% Letter of Credit (L/C) is often an acceptable option for a trading company as well.

Also Check the prices from other sourcing agents before proceeding if they are sourcing agents also

Then yo can get all details and Draft a contract and proceed to pay with Good payment terms

In most cases, German importers use bank transfers that have staged payments when there is trust created in them, while some prefer using Alibaba Trade Assurance for their first purchases although this may be costly. Others use escrow or letter of credit from their banks for their containers.

for full-container imports, most experienced importers use a 30/70 split with a small deposit (30%) by wire transfer and the balance after pre-shipment inspection, which usually runs about $300 and catches most quality issues. for added security, you can use a letter of credit, but banks charge setup fees and suppliers often prefer T/T for speed. always confirm the supplier's business registration matches the bank account name to avoid fraud, and never pay 100% upfront no matter what payment method you choose.

fwiw, my AI sourcing agent SAM pulls suppliers only after double-checking business registries and export records, flagging any issues before they hit your list from 40k+ chinese suppliers or across 120+ categories. if you're interested in the details, it's all at agenceocto.com.

If you are buying from multiple suppliers/factories but one single agent is handling it all, do you know how much commission they are charging or are they just providing you a total price?

Then you need to get some clarity on pricing. Also the Chinese currency is Yuan not Yen.

Seems like you are starting so i do recommend order LCL from Alibaba and after 2-3 order you can trust supplier and can pay Direct bank transfer and save this amount also Get prices in local rmbs as every supplier who Quotes USD add a buffer percentage so you can have more price advantage if you do things right way also in case of of FCL after 2-3 order you can do payment terms like 30% advance and 70% on B/L but this all depends on how you negotiate and make sure you have many option