The Case of “Con Cung” and The Importance Of Choosing A Right Customs Clearance Service Provider

Con Cung JSC is one of the largest supermarket chains for mom and baby in Viet Nam. Founded in 2011, Con Cung has specialized in distributing mom and children’s products such as clothing, food, milk, diapers… The company operates 346 retail stores in Vietnam, including 313 Con Cung shops and 33 Toy City stores and focuses on the Ho Chi Minh city and the South market. In 2017, the sales of Con Cung reached over $43 million.

In the past days, many of paper and internet newspaper, together with some internet socials, have continously put on public that Con Cung has cheated on the origin of goods, which is a serious violation of the law and regulations on production and business activities. However, The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT), through their Dedicated Inspection team have just officially announced their inspection result. The result clarified that Con Cung did not commit any violation in law of protecting the interest of consumers, product quality and origin, and Con Cung has all the legal and valid import dossiers in compliance with  import regulations and the origin of goods.

The incident started from a complaint from a customer in HCM City, who claimed that he bought a fabric product from Con Cung with the label “Made in Thailand” “looked like a replaced one”. Journalists and Market Surveillance Agency of HCM City immediately paid big attention to this case. While the investigation was still under conduction, the situation had became more and more noisy and complicated,  with various  rumours and many contradict opinions poured into the incident, making Con Cung to face a business crisis with lot of negative impact not only on income but also on reputation.

Being one of the reputable professional logistics and customs clearance service provider in Vietnam, Vantage Logistics was contracted by Con Cung for customs clearance service. One of the reasons we won Con Cung’s trust is that we always comply with laws and regulations, and proactively consult our clients how to improve their documents and business actitivities to the highest level of compliance.

And in this crisis, Vantage Logistics proved that Con Cung had made the right choice.

During the whole investigation process, our team have always been closely working with Con Cung’s team, providing all the proofs and documents, all necessary advice related to customs law and regulations. With all the legal compliance that Con Cung and Vantage did for all the import shipments, the investigation conclusion could not be anything else except that Con Cung did not commit any violation in law of protecting the interest of consumers, product quality and origin.

To the lesson learned from the importance of choosing right customs clearance service provider.

As we know, Customs procedures for each export/import item are different, and various from country to country. It is really complicated and needs comprehensive knowledge to do it properly.

Customs procedures often include regulations, circulars, and documents which are intergral with different ministries and authorities, can result in confusion and difficulties for businesses; moreover, the process of Customs clearance of goods must go through many steps from the preparing and checking documents, filing on-line declaration, submission of dossiers at Customs border gates, procedures of goods inspection, procedures of proving product origin, labeling, value of goods…  To ensure all steps in compliance is not easy at all. It requires deep and updated knowledge of Customs regulations and procedures.

Accuracy in preparing customs documents is also significant. Mistakes can lead not only to delay in the whole customs clearance process, but also to penalty and bad marks in import/export history records with customs.

And of course, timeliness.

Moreover, the completion of customs procedures in compliance with laws and regulations is not only important at the time the goods are exported/imported but also is a decisive factor in proving that a business is genuine and honest with its customers and Con Cung is a concrete case study.

Therefore, choosing a professional and expererienced Customs clearance service provider plays a very important role for businesses in international trading; and businesses need to consider carefully while choosing their long-termed service provider.

I think key points to choose Customs clearance service provider are:

• Professionally proficient
• Compliance
• Clear and effective standard working procedure
• High performance
• Supportive and providing added values to customers

Vantage Logistics with more than 15 years of working in providing logistics and Customs clearance services, has been doing with our best effort to provide the most effective solutions for our customer as our motto – compliance, quick and effectiveness. And the case of Con Cung has again proven it.