dibden

As I used this forum for a lot of research on shipping companies when moving from London, UK to Toronto, Canada, I thought I would offer my experience and advice for others. I saw a lot of people with a variety of opinions, but I thought offering this complete experience might help others. I also decided to write this as we go, but only post it after the whole things so you know how things went.

Our story: family of four (me and my wife, two kids ages 2 & 4), moving for personal reasons (not being relocated by work so we are paying for everything). We moved from a two-bed flat in South East London to the Toronto area. We moved only personal belongings plus a few small pieces of IKEA furniture. Moved date was June 2016.

Shipping Research
I did spend a lot of time reading up on shipping so that when we got surveys and quotes, I knew what questions I wanted answered and what things in the terms and conditions and quote meant. We got three shipping companies to visit our flat and each time I ran through the same questions. I've include those questions below. If any of the terms in them don't make sense to you, then you might want to do some quick research (Google it) to understand it.

We chose to get Whites & Co, Crown Relocations, and GB Liners based on feedback on this forum, friends recommendations, and online reviews.

Overall I was impressed with all three. Each of them was very professional, friendly, and generally very helpful and answered all the questions. Each provided us with a quote for taking the “must haves” and a second quote for those items plus a few pieces of flat-pack furniture. We made sure to be consistent with what we said to each to make sure we could compare the quotes. In the end the numbers we got back were:

SHIPPERS QUOTES:

Whites & Co.

• QUOTE A - Based on 194 cuft = £1,250.00 (£6.44/cuft)
• QUOTE B - based on 301 cuft = £1,795.00 (£5.96/cuft)
• Groupage Shipment
• Insurance 2.5-3% of shipment value

Crown Relocations

• QUOTE A - Based on 214 cuft = £1,519.00 (£7.10/cuft)
• QUOTE B - based on 306 cuft = £1,989.00 (£6.50/cuft)
• Groupage Shipment
• Insurance 3% of shipment value

GB Liners

• QUOTE A - Based on 200 cuft = £3,389.00 (£16.95/cuft)
• QUOTE B - based on 405 cuft = £4,069.00 (£10.05/cuft)
• Groupage Shipment
• Insurance 3.5% of shipment value

You will noticed that although the GB Liners quote was higher which I assumed was from a larger volume estimated, but when you level them by looking at cost per cubic foot (cuft), they still were highest. Whites and Crown estimated almost exactly the same cuft.

With our lower quantity of belongings we were shipping by groupage in a shared container, as we would only fill about a 1/4 to 1/3 of a sea container. Although there might be subtle differences in their terms and conditions, from what we read they were generally going to include the same things. These included full door-to-door service including packing of our stuff, packing materials, all the terminal and export costs that they foresee, submitting the customs paperwork, delivery to our new location in Toronto. The staff were very helpful and had either clipboards or iPads to take the inventory as they walked around.

We choose Whites & Co, because out of the three they were the cheapest, but also they said that they would only charge us for what we shipped in the end. As we were still in the process of deciding exactly what we wanted to take, we liked the flexibility to change it. The others said that they could revise it if it changed a lot in the end, but didn't think it would. Plus we generally got a good feeling from them anyways and they had good reviews on this site.

We also didn’t take the insurance offered through Whites & Co. direct. We opted for third party (see section below).

Our Experience with Whites & Co...

PICK-UP:
On a very wet weekday in June, they arrived with a medium sized lorry and luckily managed to find parking on a side street (we lived on a high street). The two guys who showed up were friendly enough. One barely spoke English so I explained to the other guy what was going. He asked a few question as they went, but pretty much just grabbed everything, wrapped it up and packed it up. The professional packing materials were good quality packing boxes and a mixed of paper, bubble wrap and foam wrap for protecting things. They also wrapped our pieces of furniture well except for one table extension that got a little bent on transit (it should have been boxed). They even managed a creative and sturdy box for our 24” computer monitor and PC. We also tried to help them by having things organised into different rooms and spaces so all the books were grouped together, along with the breakables, toys, etc. The thing I did learn and would advise you not to do was, do not leave empty storage bins around. They did actually pick up a clear plastic storage box that they could have put something in, and just packed it in a box empty. So if you want to decrease your volume, fill things up before they get there. Also Whites was good and before they left they numbered the boxes and created an inventory for me to sign. I felt like maybe I should have counted them too to make sure that there were 58 so when they arrived and 58 are there I know nothing was missing. But yet, they do mark them.

I should say the only thing I didn’t like dealing with Whites was that they left me a bunch of forms to fill out for Canada Customs clearance. When I had a question about one of the forms, they admin staff emailed me back to say “I stress that we are not in a position to assist our customers with customs forms.” I did find this a little odd because they gave me the forms and couldn’t even tell me anything about them. In the end, it wasn’t an issue.

AT THE AIRPORT:
I flew out four days later and brought two checked bags, one carry on and my bicycle packed in a box. I worked out that at $40 CAD for a bike was worth it vs shipping by sea. I had my local bike shop pack it up after servicing it. When I arrive at the airport, I handed them my filled out my B4/BSF186 with the list of things to follow. I also had included what I was bringing with me on the plane, but the customs agent said I was only suppose to indicate what was to follow. Still don’t think that was right but whatever. He stamped everything and on I went.

IN TRANSIT:
Once our stuff was out the door, loaded on the truck, we contacted Whites to confirm the actual volume and pay the invoice. We found out our actual volume was 272 cuft so we paid slightly less. Just under a month later, we got an email telling us our shipping date from Liverpool, the name of the ship, and who our local delivery agent (Tippet-Richardson Ltd) would be in Canada and how to contact them. What I found neat was that I had the name of the ship, so we got to watch the progress on marinetraffic.com. We got in touch with Tippet-Richardson and they said we had to wait until the shipment arrive in Canada before they would send me the paperwork to clear customs. Sure enough when it did, they sent me a couple of forms which I took on a quiet Saturday to the Canada Customs office at Pearson Airport. After a quick chat with the agent there and giving him the B4/BSF186 and the paperwork from Tippet-Richardson, he stamped my paperwork and I was on my way.

DELIVERY: after just over 2 months
The shippers arrive in the morning with a small delivery truck filled with our stuff. We handed them the stamped customs form and told them where to bring everything in. The rolled out mats to protect the carpet and we very friendly and nice. Easy to talk to. We only asked them to unwrap the furniture as we didn’t want them to unpack the boxes. We are hoping to buy a house so another move is not too far along. So we could keep the boxes and packing material. Plus we took out third-party insurance so we didn’t need to unpack with them there, just within 7 days. So in the end everything got there and only two things broke… ironically while we were unpacking not from shipping them.

So would I recommend Whites. Yes, but the point of this is to give you a little more insight into what you might go through. A few more notes below about choosing what to ship, ways to ship and insurance.

What to ship
Now obviously we shipped out personal things (clothing, photo albums, personal momento, etc) but we weren't sure about things like furniture, extra toys, costumes from fancy dress parties, etc. A lot of those were easier to decide once we had a cost per cubic foot. As our shipment was 300 per cuft, the fancy dress outfits actually were worth it rather then buying them again. I know there are a few posts on here where people said it's not worth shipping furniture, especially cheap IKEA stuff that you could just sell and buy again for less then the cost of shipping. But this isn't what we found. I think the guy from Whites put it well when he said "generally once you are shipping something, then to add to it isn't a lot." It's more the initial cost and setup, but if you are 300 or 400 cubic feet… there isn't a huge difference.

With that in mind I agree with someone that you also don't want to just ship things because you have them. We purged a lot. Anything we didn't use or haven't used in years, was rubbish, recycling, donations, or sold on eBay and gumtree. Old sheets that we wanted to replace were left behind. So clear out your attic and closets before the shippers arrive.

Insurance
We went with lettonpercival.co.uk (which is actually dealing Tokio Marine Kiln Insurance Limited) as they seemed to offer the same coverage for about half the cost (1.4%) of what the shippers charge you (around 3%). I didn’t have to claim anything so I don’t know what they are like to deal with, but they were fine for answering questions. Whichever route you go, read the fine print. Things like we only had 3 days to claim electronics and 7 days for the rest meant we had to check everything.

Shipping by Sea or by Air
When we started looking at shipping, some people suggested that you could do it all by air if you only had a few things, so I did look into this. I called up Air Canada Cargo and got to understand the process and how much it cost. In the end we didn't end up using them because we just paid for excess luggage. Adding one or two extra bags to our flights (on Airtransat) was about the same cost per kg as the cargo but saved the hassle of getting it to the cargo service separately. If we were shipping more by air then I would have done it by air cargo. It's actually didn't sound that difficult and it's not that expensive for smaller quantities of stuff. By that, I mean up to say 4x 30kg suitcases is about £270.00 (we rammed a suitcase full of clothes and got it up to 30kg).
2x 30kg bag = 60kg = £183
3x 30kg bag = 90kg = £228
4x 30kg bag = 120kg = £270.00

You should also note that it's based on weight, not volume like shipping by sea. This includes dimensional weight which is a calculation based on the size of the object or another way of saying it is a minimum weight. So if you ship a suitcase full with one wedding dress, it might only weigh 7kg but based on the size of the case, the cargo group will charge you like it weighs 23kg. But if that same case is packed full of books, and weighs 40kg, then you get charged for 40kg. So if you were moving with minimal stuff, but more than a suitcase (say 4-10 of them) then I would seriously consider this route. At some point the sea option would work out cheaper. But like I said, we shipped by sea and just added a bag because one or two extra bags wasn’t much.

Questions for Shippers
These are some of the questions we asked the shippers when we got quotes. Sorry it’s a little point form, but you get the idea.

Door-to-door vs warehouse collection in YYZ
- Warehouse: how long do we have to collect?
Cost for
- crates vs. groupage vs. half-container vs. full container
- Sea vs. air?
- Cost of cuft vs. kg by air?
- Cargo - do we have to collect in YYZ
Furniture - Second quote for optional items?
- How much to add out sofa and table and chairs?
Do they pack or can we?
- Full pack, partial pack (just breakable) or self pack?
- If we can, is there a cost difference?
- Do they supply materials for packing? Cost included or excluded?
- Can we pre-pack some stuff? Smaller boxes?
- Standard size of boxes?
Company vs. sub-contracts
- Who will be collection
- Who will be delivering Destination Agent
When can move us? (weekends)
- Parking/Access on Site
- Is there a cost for the 2nd floor?
If we unpack… will that be an issue if something is broken.
- Marking breakable item boxes and only unpacking those one?
- What if we won’t have a place to unpack it to.
Is there a point of shipping by small quantities is not cost effective
Third party insurance
- Do you offer insurance? Percentages?
- Can we waive it and go for third party?
- General Averages included?
- Insurance for air?
- Total Loss (self packed?) or All Risk (something damaged)
What fees are included in the quote?
- Included? Excluded?
- Packing Materials
- Customs Clearance
- Destination Port Fees, THC (Terminal Handling Charge), or DTHC (Destination Terminal Handling Charge)
- Delivery to Door
Customs Inspection?
- What is the process in Canada?
- Do we pay the fees?
- Is Groupage more likely to be inspected?
Destination options
- We do not want ship “to port”
- ask for a quote “Door to Door” or “To Warehouse, Customs Cleared”

HOPE THAT HELP ALL OF YOU! And good luck!

Yorkiechef

We also went with White & Co. Full pack unpack service, 32 cubic metres. My container was very full. Total cost including insurance £6.6k.

The guys packed very well, all arrived in Canada in almost perfect condition except my carbon framed mountain bike and a few pots from the garden.

The bike was the last item packed and at some point the load must have moved pushing the whole weight of the load onto the bike that then got crushed against the inside of the door.

Insurance paid out £2000 for the bike, it cost £2400 three months prior, i didn't claim for the pots, i suspect they were worth £100 if i were to replace them. Now looking for a new frame, levers and a new rear wheel to repair the bike, ebay is great for that stuff, just the bike is too new to find the exact frame at the mo.

Overall, i can't really complain, tippets the company consigned to unpack were slow in arranging delivery, but their blokes doing the work were fine. I had to stop one guy who was using a stanley knife to unwrap our rosewood dining room table (cut a slither off the leg) so i didn't tip them. I bought them pizza for lunch and they considered themselves lucky that I didn't report the damage from the knife.

Would i change anything - no, stuff happens you know!

Yorkiechef

On a different note, feel very lucky that my stuff is not still currently at sea, very many container ships are marooned off ports unable to load or unload their containers.

Anyone on here affected?

Hanjin ships, cargo and sailors stranded at sea - BBC News

GermanytoCanada

Many thanks for the detailed shipping information. This is really helpful.

Presumably with 270 cu ft you didn't include any major items of furniture (sofas/beds)?

We unfortunately have a complication with our shipping as we are currently living near Munich. The first decision will be whether to ship from Germany to Canada directly or whether we ship from the UK. My company will ship our belongings back to the UK at the end of my contract on our behalf (no cost to us). Our nearest port here is Trieste which is 500km away whilst the main North Sea ports are 800km away. Probably safe to assume that the cost of getting our things to a port is going to be fairly high and that sending from the UK will be far cheaper.

Assuming we have our belongings shipped to the UK first, we then need to decide where in the UK to have them sent to as the only house option is in the middle of the country. I am guessing that renting a storage unit near to the port used for the Canada shipment will reduce the UK end costs but some research is required on that. Presumably the majority of shipping options will be from Liverpool/Felixstowe/London/Southamption so we need to make some enquiries with some relocation firms (will start with Whites) and find out whether they always use the same port or whether it could be any of them (not that helpful for selecting a storage unit location).

Does anyone have any indication of whether the UK distance to port made a substantial difference to the quotation? Is it possible to deliver things to the port ourselves (or at least let the Germany-UK shipping guys do it)?

As we are currently considering the Calgary and Kamloops/Kelowna areas, I assume that both would mean shipments to Vancouver port and then road from there? Does anyone have experience of shipping to Calgary and the route that it took?

Has anyone tried shipping to Vancouver and then U-Hauling it from there to the final destination?

Thanks in advance

dibden

The 270 was just personal items (clothes, photo albums, kitchen stuff, linen, nothing with a plug except the computer, etc.) AND we took one sofa, one table, 6 dining chairs, an armchair. But the furniture was IKEA so it all dismantled... yes even the sofa.

As for which port and all, call the shippers. From what I was told, our stuff went to a warehouse where Whites loads it into a container along with other Whites customers things going to Toronto. Then it went to Liverpool where it was loaded it onto the ship and sailed to Montreal. From Montreal it went by train to Toronto. The local guys pick up the container and unload it in their warehouse and just bring us our stuff on the truck. We don't have any say in what port. That's up to Whites.

So you might be able to arrange to have your stuff shipped from Germany straight to the shippers warehouse where they would unload and load it into a container. You also might be able to collect straight from their warehouse in Canada, but you will probably want it from their “Warehouse, Customs Cleared.” Otherwise you have to clear the customs at the port and that is a lot more work from what I know. Like I said, phone around and see what they say.

Howefamily

Really informative thread for those with the move ahead. Back in 2011 we paid around GBP3500 for shipping our whole three bed home with everything bar electrical items that wouldn't have worked. I am glad we did. I remember thinking about how expensive the whole thing was until someone in Nova Scotia told me that to move her belongings, furniture etc across to Alberta was going to cost her $35000 (yes thirty five thousand dollars)
At that point I deemed our GBP3500 across the ocean, they packed and unpacked as really very reasonable indeed.

SchnookoLoly

Super useful post! I am going to add this to the Shipping page of the wiki.

We did get a quote from Whites, but ended up going with Robinsons as they were slightly cheaper. No issues with either. I've been amused to see a few White & Co vans around the GTA, though!

Thanks for sharing your post!

ShirleyEB

This is super helpful. We've just been quoted $17,500 CAD (£10,400 GBP) for a pack/unpack 20 ft container from UK (Northern Ireland) to Newfoundland. Is it just me- or does anyone else think this is expensive/ extortionate- or am I being mean!

Hurlabrick

Fantastic - really helpful post. Will print this out and use it when our time comes (Summer 2017). Whites are on out shortlist already.

SchnookoLoly

Hard to say. I'd suggest getting other quotes... if they all quote the same then there you go. We paid £2k for a share of a 20ft container... we didn't have THAT much stuff to ship, I think it was 28 total items, most of them small to medium boxes, so £10k doesn't sound that crazy, but the only real way to tell is to get other quotes and go from there.

Mimi_R

Thanks Dibden for the post, I've found it very useful. I plan to move this summer to Toronto, I'm looking to buy a property once settled too, have you secured yours, if so any thoughts to share, if not what are the challenges, experiences?
Any info to make my move smooth will be highly appreciated.
Many thanks.

SchnookoLoly

This is an older thread, so if you have some specific questions or are looking for some advice, you are best off starting your own thread and you'll get more responses that way.

Mimi_R

Thanks SchnookoLoly....

jeannine

Just to add a few things. I have crossed the Atlantic three times now and have learned a couple of things.


You can pack your own things but you are not covered by insurance if you do. I did not trust my packers with some of my super irreplaceable stuff so packed it myself. If lost I would have no claim but I have things that are very precious to me but not particularly valuable so it is a good choice for me. The only breakage I got was in the things they packed, no damage at all in my own packing.


Self packing also means you can pack frugally, eg even a teapot can contain a small bubble wrapped ornament and you are only paying for capacity not weight.


I packed according to size of spaces in boxes so clothes may be in with dishes etc and they acted as packing.


My husband had a large wooden chest that contained tools that he would not part with, it was closed with straps and very sturdy, the very last thing that went in the box was the contents of the office and kitchen drawers, pens, rulers , cutlery etc etc and little things one might not usually pack, he just tipped the drawers loose in the chest, same with my craft tools and artists brushes, they just found there way naturally into all the small spaces. My quilting cottons were used as packing material round pictures. I doubt if we could have got a babies building block in any one of the boxes by the time we had finished. This is a good thing to do with children's toys, especially of they are not breakable. It is quite the sorting job at the other end but it did mean that a lot of stuff travelled free.


I am not suggesting that someone use this method but it is an idea as a supplement to pro packing.


I brought my whole DVD collection and then found a region free player here, the first time I disposed of it then realized my mistake.


Good luck with your packing

Shakyuk

One of the most informative and in depth posts I've seen on the forum, I can see this helping many members and lurkers alike. Thank you so much for taking the time to write it.