Batteries are not really a product category. They are a dangerous-goods category with a product attached, and the cell decides the freight lane, the shelf life, the certification file and the warranty tail long before anyone discusses the box.
You are buying cells; the enclosure is joinery. We establish the chemistry, the cell maker, the grade and the date codes on the actual cells in the sample, and whether the pack uses one lot or a mix. A pack built from downgraded or rewrapped cells passes a five-minute demonstration and fails once the warranty is running.
Not the certificate — the file. A UN 38.3 test summary is valid for the configuration that was tested, so a changed cell, or any of the design changes sub-section 38.3.5 lists, sends it back for retest, and the summary a factory sends is often for a superseded revision. The same discipline applies to the IEC 62133-2, IEC 62619 or EN IEC 62368-1 report: check the model annex actually lists the variant you are buying, and check the issue date against the current bill of materials.
Discharge at the rated continuous load to measure usable watt-hours rather than nameplate, then test surge behaviour, pass-through charging, BMS quiescent draw and the low-temperature charge lockout that LFP requires below zero. Add a thermal soak at the temperature the destination market actually reaches. We compare the bench figures against the datasheet line by line and quote from the bench figure.
A factory that cannot get cargo onto a ship is not a supplier. We check UN-marked packaging with a current test report, the correct packing instruction, and whether the plant can produce the Chinese export dangerous-goods identification report and the packaging performance and use certificates without a three-week scramble.
Battery products carry a multi-year obligation, so the warranty terms, the spare pack and board ratio, the firmware update route and the serial-to-lot records are negotiated with the unit price, not after it. We also settle who registers as producer in each destination market before the first order, because that decides who carries the recycling and reporting cost.
For Zeero Energy and Highbeam Energy we specify usable output at a stated continuous load, continuous and surge watts separately, and cycle life at a defined depth of discharge and temperature. The figure printed on the carton has to be the figure the bench produces. Where nameplate and usable energy differ, the difference is explained in the manual rather than argued about later.
We commission and hold the test file in our own name rather than the factory's, and have the model annex drawn to cover the capacity, colour and socket variants, so adding a market variant does not restart the programme. Cell substitution is treated as a design change and goes back through UN 38.3 and the safety report, because the alternative is a shipment that cannot be booked.
Battery pictograms, chemistry, capacity and importer identity on the product, and a reserved field in the artwork for the QR code the EU regime brings in. Separate plates for Serbian, Portuguese, Arabic and traditional Chinese manual sets. Vent placement, ingress rating and handle load are settled at the same time, since all three move when the enclosure is retooled.
UN-certified boxes with cushioning proven by drop and stack testing, not a carton chosen on cost per unit. Units leave in transport or sleep mode at the state of charge the booked line will accept, with a recharge-by date on the outer, and the pallet plan is drawn to fit both a 40ft high cube and a European pallet network without restacking.
Shipper's declaration, safety data sheet, UN 38.3 test summary and packaging certificates assembled before the cargo is ready, and carrier dangerous-goods approval requested with the lead time the line actually needs. Class 9 space is rationed and rolls easily, so the booking is treated as a long-lead item alongside the cells.
We book pre-shipment inspection on the finished pallets, with capacity discharge on drawn samples and electroluminescence imaging on modules, and hold the balance payment until the report passes. Where a lot fails, rework happens at the factory rather than in a European warehouse where the stock is already Class 9.
Producer registrations and recycling scheme enrolment, national declarations of conformity in the required language, translated manuals, and importer identity applied to the product and packaging rather than stickered on at the depot. Where DG Brands Europe or Sana Vivo Brands is the importer of record, that registration sits with us and the buyer receives goods already placed on the market.
Not every warehouse will accept lithium above threshold quantities, and those that will impose segregation and quantity limits. We place stock where it can legally sit, monitor state of charge against the recharge-by date and rotate by cell lot rather than by pallet position.
Spare packs, BMS boards and inverter modules landed with the first order rather than ordered when the first failure appears. Firmware versions are recorded against serials and serials against cell lots, so a defect can be answered as a lot action instead of a whole-range one.
The document set below is what this category needs to clear. We raise it rather than forwarding a checklist.
Cells, modules and finished units come out of Greater China into the EU, Serbia and the Gulf, while European-specified and European-branded stock moves the other way into Hong Kong and Singapore. Class 9 rules the routing in both directions: full containers by sea on bookings placed weeks ahead, transhipment only through ports that will accept lithium, and the inland ADR legs planned before the vessel is fixed.
A finished unit moves as UN 3481 contained in equipment, PI 967 Section I, on passenger or cargo aircraft; a loose pack moves as UN 3480, PI 965 Section IA, cargo aircraft only and at or below 30% state of charge, in UN-marked packaging closed by a trained packer. Freight and handling frequently cost more than the sample itself, and many forwarders decline it outright. We either book it properly and give you the real number, or build a sub-100 watt-hour demonstration unit that moves under lighter conditions.
Whoever first places the goods on the market in that member state. If DG Brands Europe or Sana Vivo Brands imports and invoices you, that registration and the reporting sit with us. If you import directly, they are yours, in each member state you sell into, and the registration number has to exist before the first sale. We prepare the file either way and state plainly which of us is carrying it.
The nameplate is cells at nominal voltage. What reaches the socket is reduced by the depth-of-discharge window the BMS enforces, inverter conversion loss, standby draw and ambient temperature. We specify and test to usable output at a stated continuous load, and the gap between the two figures belongs in the manual rather than in a claim after delivery.
Cells leave at a low state of charge because the line's lithium terms require it, then spend the whole Asia-Europe transit plus port and customs dwell, and a BMS with real quiescent draw keeps pulling the whole time. Cells drift under the recovery threshold and the pack refuses to charge. We measure quiescent current at sample stage, ship in transport mode, print a recharge-by date on the outer carton and top up stock in the warehouse against that date.
Tell us the product, the origin and the destination. We come back with the classification, the document set and a realistic timeline.
Leave three lines and we will come back with the corridor, the customs position and a realistic timeline for whatever you are moving.