Alan King Group is a 3PL for brands that make their products in China. Your factory delivers to our Dongguan warehouse. We ship each order direct to customers worldwide, hold stock in Los Angeles for US orders, or use both warehouses and send each order from whichever costs less.
2
Warehouses: LA + Dongguan
Actual
China direct billed on real weight
1
Shopify connection for both
1–2 days
You hear back, from a person
The US ended duty-free entry for parcels under 800 dollars in 2025. The EU ended its 150 euro exemption on July 1, 2026. It now charges a flat 3 euro duty per item, with a handling fee proposed for November 2026. Send each order from China as a separate parcel and every order now carries duty, brokerage and delay.
Move US stock in bulk, clear customs once and ship domestically. Serve the rest of the world direct from Dongguan, with correct declarations. That is the service. Your quote shows when the switch makes sense for your volume.
Built by ecommerce founders, for founders. We use this setup for our own brands before we offer it to anyone else.
Dongguan to your customer, direct
For new brands, pre-orders and first drops. Also for brands whose US volume is still small.
Los Angeles to US customers
For brands with steady US volume that want domestic delivery times and a single customs entry.
Both warehouses. Routing by order.
How most of our brands ship once they sell in more than one region.
Apparel has its own dedicated line, which is the cheapest way to move a garment and reaches 26 countries. Everything it does not reach moves on our general line for a little more per order. You never lose a destination by routing off the apparel line, because it covers no country the others do not.
The cheapest route for clothing. The US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Singapore, Israel, the Gulf states, and in Europe the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Ireland.
Poly bag packaging. Declared value limits apply per country and we will tell you yours before you launch.
Everything the apparel line misses, for roughly one percent more per order. Adds Switzerland, Poland, Czechia, Greece, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Luxembourg, Malta and Cyprus across Europe, plus Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Hong Kong, South Africa and much of West and East Africa.
Eastern Europe is often cheaper per order than the United States.
Products with a built in battery ship on a filed channel once we register your product photos and specifications with the carrier. Widest coverage of the three.
Priced above the standard lines. Tell us the product and we will confirm the channel before you commit.
Outside those 74 we ship through DHL or UPS, which picks up the last mile in the places a lot of carriers quietly decline. Most brands have a short list of markets their current provider will not serve, or serves badly. Tell us yours. Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Montenegro all reach, and so do most markets you are likely to ask about. Volumes there are small, so they are quoted case by case rather than from a rate sheet.
Finished goods go straight from the production line to our dock. If you want US warehousing, we book bulk freight from Dongguan to Los Angeles.
We check in and store your stock. We connect your Shopify store so orders come to us automatically.
We pick, pack and ship from Dongguan or Los Angeles, whichever is cheaper and faster for that address. Tracking goes back to Shopify.
Dongguan is in the Pearl River Delta, so most Guangdong factories deliver straight to our dock. If your product is not in production yet, Studio handles tech packs, sampling and production with the same factories.
We film every order leaving our Dongguan warehouse as it is packed and sealed, with a timestamp tied to the order. We film every return as it is opened. When a chargeback, wrong-item claim or suspect return comes in, there is a record to check.
Every 3PL claims an accuracy rate. We are the one that shows you the tape.
How the evidence works →Alan King founded the streetwear label AKINGS and has spent twelve years in this industry, which means the problems you are describing are ones he has already had. Alan King Group operates four consumer brands, and every one of them ships on the setup described on this page.
That is the whole pitch. We are not a logistics business that decided apparel looked like a market. We built this to ship our own product, found it worked, and opened it up.
Forbes 30 Under 30, Arts & Style.
Work covered in
Forbes · Vogue · GQ · The New York Times · WWD · Business Insider · Highsnobiety · Esquire
Worth reading before you fill anything in. These are carrier restrictions, not preferences, so there is no volume that changes them. If your product is on the first list we will say so on the first reply rather than quote around it.
Your own brand is not a restriction. Own-label and unbranded goods both ship normally. The IP line above is about counterfeits and unlicensed third-party marks, not about you selling your own product. Restricted items vary by destination as well as by product, and customs authorities have the final say. If you are unsure, describe the product in the notes field below and we will check it against the destination before quoting.
Yes. Tracking is written back to the order automatically, usually within a day of dispatch. It is occasionally slower, and we have seen one instance where a system fault delayed it longer, so we check it rather than assume it. If we spot a lag on your orders we will tell you before your customers do.
You do. Inbound freight from your factory to our Dongguan warehouse is your cost and your arrangement. Your factory can deliver straight to us and we already receive goods this way from several factories, so if your production is in Guangdong the move is short and you skip a leg entirely. We receive the goods, count them in and put them away, and that part is charged per unit. We say this upfront because it is the one cost brands assume is included, and finding out later is a bad way to start.
Your own brand is fine. Unbranded goods are fine. What we will not ship is counterfeit product, or anything carrying a trademark, design or character that you do not own or hold a licence for. That includes unauthorised brand accessories and anything using a well known IP without permission. If the artwork and the mark are yours, registered or not, there is no issue, and you do not need to send us a trademark certificate to start.
We run LingXing as our ERP and it connects to Shopify directly, so orders flow through without you exporting anything. Setup is usually a day. We would ask you to plan for three to five business days, because during peak and the holiday run-up the queue is longer and we would rather quote you the honest window than the best case.
Yes, and it is worth checking before you go further. The China lines carry no liquids, no powders, no cosmetics or skincare, no supplements or anything ingestible, no loose batteries and nothing classed as dangerous goods. The apparel line is poly bag only and takes no electrical items at all. The full list is on this page under what we cannot carry. If your product is on it we will tell you straight away rather than quote around it.
Not on the lines we run today. Cosmetics, skincare, serums and liquids of any kind are refused, and for the US that refusal is explicit. We would rather say so than take a week getting to the same answer. If that changes we will update this page, and you are welcome to leave your details so we can come back to you.
On the apparel line, yes. It takes poly bags only, inner and outer, so a printed carton or rigid retail box will not work on that line. Small hard goods can ship in a box on the general line. If your packaging is part of the unboxing, tell us early and we will work out which line fits or whether this is the wrong service for you.
Yes, and to 73 other countries. Each US order now carries duty and a customs fee. We declare it correctly and include those charges in your quote. Once US volume is steady, holding stock in Los Angeles usually costs less per order. If a market is not on one of our lines we ship it through DHL or UPS instead, so ask us about a specific country rather than assuming either way.
When steady US orders make bulk freight and domestic ground cheaper than paying duty parcel by parcel. For most apparel brands, that means a few dozen US orders a day. Your quote shows whether you have reached that point.
Orders leave Dongguan by tracked air shipping. Your quote gives delivery ranges by region for your product. Timing depends on the weight and where it is going.
Yes. Your Shopify orders go to our warehouse team. Tracking goes back to Shopify and your customer.
Yes. Dongguan is in the Pearl River Delta, so most Guangdong factories deliver straight to our dock. If you need US warehousing, we book bulk freight from Dongguan to Los Angeles.
We handle China's export paperwork and customs entry for bulk shipments into Los Angeles. On direct parcels the duty is the customer's by default, declared correctly and shown up front rather than sprung at the door. If you would rather absorb it yourself and keep checkout clean, you can, and we quote it that way instead.
We cover it. If we pick or pack the wrong size, colour or SKU, the reshipment is on us rather than on you, and we do not ask you to prove it first because we can go straight to the footage of that order being packed. There is a tolerance and a per claim cap, both written into your agreement in plain language rather than buried in a schedule, and we will walk you through them before you sign.
No. The warehouse runs year round and only stops for something genuinely outside anyone's control, like a natural disaster or a grid outage. Most China based fulfillment shuts for two to three weeks around Chinese New Year, which is why brands spend every January building a buffer. Labour over that period costs more and there is a surcharge to match, which we show you in your quote rather than hiding it in a January invoice.
Freight runs on a prepaid credit balance, topped up monthly. That is how we start every relationship, so there is no invoicing risk on either side while we are new to each other. Warehouse handling is billed on what you actually use. Terms can change once there is a track record.
US returns come back to Los Angeles, are inspected and restocked. Parcels shipped direct from China cannot be returned to China. A failed delivery is re-attempted in the destination country, and most lanes allow 14 to 20 days to arrange that before the parcel is disposed of. We set that expectation with you per lane before you launch.
Yes. Pre-orders and first drops leave Dongguan the day your factory delivers. You can sell before any stock lands in the US.
Yes. Alan King Group Studio handles tech packs, sampling and production with the same factories that deliver to our Dongguan warehouse.
Something not answered here? Put it in the notes field below and a person will answer it directly.
Cost
One hoodie, worked three ways, with public benchmarks. Why the duty base matters more than the shipping rate.
Policy
The timeline, what a parcel pays now in the US and EU, and the three lanes that still work. Refreshed each time a rule changes.
Compare
Who each one fits and where each one costs you, including where the other three are the better choice.
Two minutes to fill out. Your volume and your store tell us most of what we need, and the more of it you give us the closer the numbers are. A person reads it, looks at your catalogue, and comes back with per-order pricing for the setup you picked. Not sure which setup you want? Say so and we price the options side by side.