You agree a date. The brand says the product is on its way. The date arrives, the parcel does not, and you are the one apologising.
This is one of the most common ways a job goes wrong, and it has nothing to do with filming. It happens because two people used the same word for two different things: the brand meant the day it shipped, you heard the day you would have it.
Say it once, in writing
The sentence that prevents most of this is short. The shoot happens a set number of days after the product is physically received, not after it is sent.
Written that way, a delay stops being anybody's fault and becomes a fact that moves the calendar. Written the other way, every delay lands on the person holding the camera.
What goes wrong between the order and the box
A parcel from outside the EU
Brands in the United Kingdom, the United States or Brazil send things constantly, and those parcels are handled differently from a package coming from Spain or Germany. There can be a formality to clear and a charge to pay, and the person the carrier asks is the person at the address, which is you.
Agree beforehand who covers it and how it comes back to you. Ask the brand for the carrier and the tracking, and if a charge appears, send the receipt the same day rather than absorbing it quietly.
Portugal is at the far end of the map
A parcel from central Europe takes longer to reach Lisbon than it does to reach almost anywhere else in the union, and outside the two big cities the delivery window gets vaguer rather than tighter. If you live in the interior or on an island, say so when the date is agreed. It is not a complication, it is information the brand does not have.
The wrong item, or a damaged one
It arrives and it is the other colour, the smaller size, or the box is crushed. Photograph it before opening anything else, send the photos immediately, and do not start filming a product you were not asked to film. A creator who improvises here delivers something unusable and pays for it in revisions.
| What happened | Who normally pays | The line that settles it |
|---|---|---|
| Customs charge on arrival | The brand, reimbursed on the receipt | Import charges are reimbursed on proof |
| Parcel arrives late | Nobody, the date moves | Filming starts N days after receipt |
| Wrong reference sent | The brand, with a new shipment | Only the agreed reference is filmed |
| Product damaged in transit | The brand, on photos | Damage is reported before opening |
| Product not returned | Agreed in advance | The product stays with the creator, or goes back at the brand's cost |
The last row causes more bad feeling than all the others. Decide it before the shoot, in one sentence, and never treat a product as part of the payment.
The first ten minutes after it arrives
Three things, in this order, before anything else.
Film the sealed box for twenty seconds. It costs nothing, it is the only proof of how the parcel arrived, and it is often footage the brand wants anyway.
Check the reference against the brief rather than against your memory of the brief. Colour, size, variant, quantity. Almost every wrong-item problem in this job was visible in the first minute and noticed on the third day.
Then confirm receipt in writing, and give the date. That message is what starts the clock you agreed, and without it the count starts from whatever date the other person remembers.
Ask whether you can collect it
This is the Portuguese advantage and it gets forgotten. The market is small and a surprising share of clients are within driving distance, or have a shop, a warehouse or a stand somewhere near you.
Collecting the product removes the entire problem, adds an hour to your week, and puts you face to face with the client once before the shoot. That conversation is worth more than the hour, because briefs get clearer when people have met.
