di90

I've had another quote for £1490 from another local company and i'm waiting for other quotes to get back to me. Both these are self pack and are from local east midland freight companies. Price doesn't include delivery of container to the house in OZ or customs. I know this is excellent value but what do you think about going with a company that is smallish and local. Do they do the same job as the bigger companies that offer budget freight? How do you know they will do a good job?

Racht70

Hi there could you name the companies you got these quotes from (to put in my oz folder) Ta xx

di90

absail.co.uk was £1400

transatlantic line in nottingham £1490

Just google them both and they will come up.

Don't think either belong to BIFA though. Is that really important??

DrWho

Have you obtained a quote from an Aussie Customs broker to get you through Customs, AQIS, pay any local THC's, local storage and final delivery to your destination...? Might be worth enquiring...

Personally if you decide to ship like this and you've got answers for the questions I mentioned then the main thing to look for would be the old freight prepaid/collect issue... You would want to make sure the Bill of Lading says freight has been pre-paid and not collect, which means the shipping line will want money at the other end before releasing the container. You of course would have paid up front and it's not beyond the bounds of a hard strapped freight forwarder to send something collect to buy 6 weeks of cash flow... IYSWIM... and 6 weeks is a long time...

di90

thanks for replying. I hope you don't mind me saying but i didn't understand some of the things you mentioned. It is late at night and i'm a woman

Ok, i'm not all too clear of what happens once the ship docks in melbourne, all i know is customs will inspect container. So i need to sort out an aussie customs broker. How do i go about this?
What is 'old freight prepaid/collect issue' and bill of lading? Please simplify for me. thankyou

tomcruise

I am shipping my stuff from Toronto to Brisbane. I paid C$ 3500.00

I contacted a local agent in Brisbane to help me clear my stuff. Here is his email with the steps needed to clear the stuff:

>>>
yes but remember under australian law you can clear personal effects yourself

you will pay landing charges upon arrival to the toronto shipping agent in Australia ..that is .. you will pay a portion of cost to get container off ship onto wharf, from wharf to bond store, unpack container, lodge manifest, terminal security and delivery order

Once you pay those charges you are given the delivery order which allows you to go to customs and AQIS and lodge your clearing documents

customs and AQIS clearance is a thankless job all time and labour

we charge all charges plus GST
customs clearance A$ 350.00
plus ICS A$57.00
plus CNR A$45.00

AQIS
fees and permits A$62.00
lodgement A$75.00
AQIS officer inspection is A$96.00 per 1/2 hour
bond store facility fee A$40.00 per cbm (min A$140.00)
you do AQIS inspection ie.. open boxes for inspection
otherwise you pay us A$75.00 per hour (mim 4 hours)

you come in and pick up goods from brisbane bond store and cart home
>>>>>>>>>>>

Hope this helps..

GinaUK

In simple terms:

You decide to go with "Abseil" and pay them £1,400 to ship your container to Oz. "Abseil" don't own any container ships. So (for example), "Abseil" decide to ship your container with a shipping company called "Maersk".

For "Maersk" to take your container on one of their ships to Oz, "Abseil" pay "Maersk" most of your £1,400. There are two ways for "Abseil" to do this: upfront ("pre-paid" on the bill of lading) or after your container has landed in Oz ("collect" on the bill of lading).

It makes good business sense for "Abseil" to hang on to your money for as long as possible, i.e. most of these companies pay the shippers "collect".

That's fine, unless "Abseil" goes out of business between your container going on the ship and arriving in Oz. If that happens, you will have paid "Abseil" £1,400 and now you will have to "Maersk" another £1,400 before they release your stuff to you. That's because "Maersk" were to be paid on collection - only "Abseil" are now no longer around to pay them. (You can take out insurance against this kind of thing.)

As for finding a customs broker: search for one in Melbourne in the Yellow Pages. Then phone round and see if you can find one who is prepared to deal with you.

As well as paying the customs broker, you will need to pay AQIS for the inspection (which can take several hours for a self-packed container). There may also be wharf storage fees to pay. And then you need to hire a removal company to take your stuff out of the container and deliver it to you.

Getting insurance for a self-packed container can also be tricky (try Letton Percival www.lettonpercival.co.uk ).

By the time you paid for all of the above (and factored in the hassle of doing it yourself) you'll find you've hardly saved any money.

Gina

di90

WOW!!!
Thankyou toncruise and ginauk for explaining and for putting a different spin on things ginauk. Certainly something to think about.
I didn't realise that ALL this was involved at the other end!!! Sounds like an absolute nightmare but one i will happily challenge if needs be. If anyone has the details of any brokers in Melbourne could you please PM me the details. Many thanks.

slipshot

I would certainly caution the cheap option here. Just that packing is harder than you think, and you'll not know until it is too late whether you have done enough protecting your items, you need to factor in the boxes and wrapping paper that you'll need, which will be a lot.

Also remember that whatever you have packed this end needs to be unpacked - so you have to hire a suitable truck in Aus to get to the port, and load up yourselves.

To my mind, although the costs are big, moving home is stressful anyway. Then you are in a new country, new roads, new forms, and trying to get your stuff from the docks.

Far easier in my book to have everything taken care of so it all gets delivered to your door or even unpacked if required.

Finally, if you do not have anywhere to live, at least door to door you can ask the handlers to tore it for you. If you self pack you have no choice, which may then mean you have to pack into a van, then unpack into a storage dept, then repack, then unload.

Way too much hassle in my book...

GinaUK

Good point, Andy!

And to the OP: If you buy packing boxes make sure you buy ones suitable for international moving. These are a lot thicker than "ordinary" packing boxes used for a move within the UK.

You also need to get special wrapping paper for all your furniture, for example your three-piece-suite. This is very thick paper, reinforced with some cardboard material. Our shippers wrapped up every item of furniture in several layers of it.

Think about how your stuff will get thrown about in 6ft seas in the container .... If it isn't ALL wrapped and securely stacked in the container you'll just get "bits" back.

I've been a member of this forum for 3.5 years. In all that time only two people have written about going the DIY shipping route. Lots have thought about it and then decided it was just too complicated.

Gina

di90

well thankyou for all your opinions. After some further research, i have now decided not to ship DIY style. I guess i just needed to explore that option which i am glad i did, as i would always be wondering what if otherwise. Have contacted crown and all the others for quotes.

thank again for all your opinions and guidance.

CharleneG

Hi there

I've just had 2 companies round to give me quotes this week.
I'm looking at filling 3/4 of a 20ft container, both estimated 740 - 750cuft.
They were estimating 2 and a half days just to pack everything and make sure all of the manifest was in enough detail for customs.

The first company has come back with sole use of a container @ £3,600 + insurance of 3% of the value on a new for old basis.
The second was talking about groupage so it will be interesting to see what they want to charge.

With insurance I am looking at just short of £5k and that does not include taking any white goods at all, only 1 bed but a whole load of DVD's CD's and clothes we can't bear to be parted from.

I would be interested in anyone's views on the groupage issue. I've been told it would probably add 2 weeks to the 8 - 10 if i had sole use. Is this realistic? Is 2 extra weeks really noticeable after this length of time anyway?

Charlene

DrWho

3/4 of a box is enough to do it on sole use... There's a whole world of nasties you can avoid doing this... like having yours sealed at your house after pack, not taken back to someone's warehouse and moved to a corner somewhere while they wait for more cargo, the possibility of pilferage, the delays because someone else in your box has got something they shouldn't/aroused Customs/AQIS' interest, etc etc...

Any shipping co that gets someone to agree to groupage with a 3/4 load is laughing... you'll be paying for all his costs and everything else that goes in is icing...

CharleneG

Cool

Thanks for that.
I was a bit suspicious that they didn't even suggest sole useage.

The first quote for sole useage was from one of the big firms too, I thought they'd be more prone to the dodgy behaviour!!

Charlene

tomcruise

For the benefit of all, I now have the final cost details for a 20ft container from Toronto (Canada) to Gold Coast (Qld).

Canada:
=====

Shipping cost for 20ft container + some packing = Can $3500.00

(Basically it was $3000 for the container and $500 for packing the big items like mattress, beds, sofas etc. We did the rest of the packing like kitchen items, etc)

We used briskcargo (www.briskcargo.com) as our shipper in Canada who employed the services of MEDITERRANEAN SHIPPING COMPANY (MSC) to actually ship the container.

We shipped our stuff around Aug 23rd 2008. It was first send by rail to Montreal and then on ship to Spain, Singapore , Sydney and Brisbane.


Australia:
======
On Nov 9th 2008, I got a call from MSC that the container will arrive in Brisbane in about 10 days. I decided to get a local clearing agent in Brisbane. I got quotes from 3 and settled on one (Personal Effects Specialists PES). All the 3 quotes were very competitive and I had a hard time picking one but finally picked on the one that was very responsive. I got response to my questions in minutes from PES while others took an hour or little more (It was that hard a choice).

Here is the final expense :
Total =Aus $2398.70 (including GST)

Here is the breakdown:
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
CUSTOMS CLEARANCE / AGENCY FEE $300.00
MEDITERRANEAN SHIPPING PORT CHARGES $387.00
QUARANTINE INSPECTION FEE $268.00
DECONSOLIDATION - TPT OF CONTAINER AND UNPACK $1,250.00
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I went to open the boxes for the quarrantine officer at the depot used by PES. The depot was the office of Agility Logistics, 175 Eagle Farm Road,Pinkenba. I was supposed to be there at 10:15 for 10:30 appointment and when I got there the quarrantine/customs officer was already there (He arrived at 10.10am as per log book).
The inspection was very relaxed. As we had used 2 fruit carton boxes from Canada, he asked me to unpack them and pack it in a new box (which I had to buy from the depot who charged $5 a piece for a carton box). The customs agent also asked me to clean one of the bicycles which had small leaves hanging from the chain area. But while I was busy unpacking the 2 cartons, the customs agent himself cleaned it up form me. Thank you quarrantine officer. You were fantastic. Overall, it took just under 40 mins to complete the inspection. The old carton boxes were disposed of in a special wheelie bin. No charges for disposing them. He stamped my quarrantine declaration form.

Lessons learnt: Don't use fruit carton boxes to pack your stuff. You can use other old carton boxes. Take a good knife to open the boxes. Take good tapes to re-seal the boxes back. (this was time consuming as I had taken a bad tape)

Removalist:
My local agent also arranged me a removalist. It was supposed to be done next day but it was my lucky day as they were available on the same day. I was charged 125/hour by the removalist including time to go back to the depot. They charged in total 4.5 hours to deliver to my house down the coast which amounted to $560. The actual time the remeovalist spent was under 3 hours. They started loading at 2pm and left my house around 5pm.

We have been unpacking since then!.

Summary of charges:

Shipper=Can $3500
Local= Aus $2,398.70
Removalist= $560.00