Why Thai Wholesalers Lose Money on High-Volume Imports: The Case for Landed Cost Tracking Software

Landed cost is the total price of a product once it has arrived at the buyer's door. It includes the original product cost from the supplier, ocean/air freight, customs duties, insurance, port fees, broker handling, and local delivery charges. Tracking it prevents selling items below their real cost.

Spreadsheets operate in silos, disconnected from actual sales orders and inventory ledgers. They require tedious manual data entry, are highly prone to formula errors, do not handle real-time exchange rates, and prevent sales teams from seeing updated profit margins when quoting.

An ERP links purchase orders, shipping receipts, and vendor bills. It automatically distributes secondary expenses across items using predefined rules such as weight, volume, or purchase value, updating the inventory asset value on the Balance Sheet instantly.

Exchange rate movements between the purchase date, customs entry date, and actual foreign payment create a 3% to 8% cost variance. Landed cost software automatically reconciles these timing differences and posts foreign exchange adjustments directly to inventory asset values or FX variance accounts.

In Thailand, configuring landed cost features within an ERP implementation takes 25 to 50 consulting man-days. At a standard professional service rate of 7,000 THB per man-day, the cost ranges between 175,000 THB and 350,000 THB, depending on tariff structures and shipping complexity.