Quote a first-time buyer a price and the second question, right after "how much," is usually "what's included." That's really an Incoterms question, even when the buyer doesn't know the term. FOB, CIF, and DDP answer it. They just draw the line between buyer and seller responsibility in three different places, and picking the wrong one for your situation means paying for services you don't need, or discovering too late that a service you assumed was included wasn't.
FOB: you take over at the Indian port
Free On Board means we deliver the goods loaded onto the vessel at the Indian port. From that point, ocean freight, marine insurance, and destination-side clearance are yours to arrange. FOB is the right call if you already have a freight forwarder relationship and can get better ocean rates than we can quote, which happens more often than you'd think, especially for buyers who ship other cargo on the same lanes already.
The tradeoff: you're now coordinating two parties, your Indian supplier and your own forwarder, instead of one. If something goes wrong with the vessel booking, that's your call to chase down, not ours.
CIF: we handle freight and insurance, you handle the rest
Cost, Insurance, and Freight means we book the ocean freight and take out minimum insurance coverage to your destination port. You still handle customs clearance and inland delivery once the container lands. This is the most common choice for buyers without an existing forwarder relationship, and it's what most of our first-time quotes default to unless the buyer asks otherwise.
One thing worth knowing: "minimum insurance" under CIF is genuinely minimum: Institute Cargo Clauses (C), the narrowest tier. If your cargo is high-value or fragile, ask for an upgrade to Clauses (A) coverage rather than assuming CIF's default insurance is comprehensive. It isn't, by design.
DDP: we handle everything, including your own customs
Delivered Duty Paid puts the entire chain on the seller: freight, insurance, destination customs clearance, duties, and delivery to your named address. It sounds like the obvious choice for a first-time buyer who wants zero involvement, and sometimes it is. But DDP only works well when the supplier genuinely understands the destination country's import requirements, and that's not universal. We quote DDP on a smaller set of destinations where we've actually built the customs relationships to do it properly, rather than offering it everywhere and hoping the paperwork works out on the buyer's end.
What we actually recommend for a first order
CIF, for most first-time buyers. It's the middle point on the spectrum: you're not coordinating a freight forwarder you don't have yet, and you're not trusting a supplier with your own country's customs process on the first shipment. Once you've run a few orders and have your own customs broker relationship in place, FOB usually saves money. You're cutting out our freight markup and booking ocean rates directly.
The takeaway for buyers
Ask what's included in the quoted price before you compare it to another supplier's number. A FOB quote and a CIF quote for the same goods will look very different on paper and cost roughly the same once you add the missing pieces back in. The Incoterm isn't fine print. It's most of what determines whether the number you're looking at is the number you'll actually pay.
— Nitik · Darsavio EXIM