GillyG

We are renting a furnished house at the moment and don't have any furniture and was wondering if it is financially better to buy a leather lounge suite here in the UK and ship it over or just wait and buy one in Oz? Does Australia have shops like DFS/Land of Leather where it is possible to but a good quality suite at a fairly reasonable price? Also, is there any other house hold items that would be better to buy in the UK and put in our shipment as they are more expensive in Australia? Thanks!

Tom Ward

Hmmmm, funnily enough my wife and I had the same dilemma. We decided in the end that it would be better to buy furniture here and ship it as we were taking a container anyways and figured it would be more cost effective to fill it with new stuff than to take old. Other consideration were that we wounldn't qualify for credit when we forst arrive in Oz in Sept and if the exchange rate is crap (as it probably will be) we'd actually be better off spending pounds than dollars. Not really an answer to your quandry but some thoughts to add which might help.

Kingseat

One thing to keep in mind (I am sure someone will tell me if I am wrong) is that you must own your property for at least 1 year prior to it arriving in Australia.

I am sure everyone who has bought something new stuck by these guidelines and sold off their new items before shipping

Be careful what you do with receipts, just in case!

Dougie

Your right Kingseat, You have to have owned it for the 12 Mths prior to shipping.

But i am sure that this is only enforced on the expensive items inc Cars etc etc

Just dont be packing all your new gear off to Oz still in the wrappers


Dougie

kar-kier

We bought some new stuff and shipped it - as others have said, make sure you take off all the new packaging. I have found the selection out here not as good, and a bit more expensive, so I am glad that we shipped!

K14

Hi

We bought our leather sofas in UK and shipped them as we were bringing a container anyway. They were alot cheaper than buying over here. We had some furniture that needed replacing so we bought new beds for our daughters from Ikea here in Perth and a new table and chairs from Classique furniture here. The prices of those weren't too bad.

Our sofas from UK cost about £1,000 for 2 leather sofas and a footstool. We wouldn't have got that deal here.

Good luck.

pompeyblonde

Buy and ship....much cheaper and a better selection....

kericare

would have to agree on that too,its really expensive here im glad we shipped everything over

bourbon-biscuit

just don't tick the box to declare new stuff coz you're in a hurry and you've not realised what you're doing- we paid customs a good few hundred- our mistake, be careful it's not yours!

juddy

I disagree on a fw of these, we brought most things out with us, ie beds, wardrobe, side tables etc, and wish we had not, they dont fit in here with the new house we have, the bed was too small, so we bought a 6 footer, whick was around $1000 with a good matteres, thats 400 pounds, i could not find one in the Mother land for less than 1000 pounds. Electrical stuff is cheaper here too. What i wish we hand brought with us, are things like, knifes, folks spoons, kitchen things, hose pipe, garden tools , mountain bikes.

kim69

honestly cant see how people can say oz is more expensive we sold everything in uk and came with suitcase each had to buy everthing for new house i thought it was very cheap just haggled on price n got quite good deals,also yaz would probably get here before your stuff arrived so end up buying things anyway.
weve just had two sets off friends move out both have said they wish they hadnt shipped stuff over.

Kalenge

I also disagree about quality leather sofas being more expensive in Oz. In fact I feel that there's more bargaining power here if you're up to it.

Definitely buy here...

• Your guarantees will be worth something.
  
  
• Get furniture that's more appropriate - typical house layout and room size is quite different to the UK. We were very close to buying an outdoor furniture set to fill up the last spot in the container, but very glad that we didn't as the design and style of the furniture here is more suited to the outdoor areas. Entertaining rooms tend to be open plan which are more appropriate to different furniture styles.
  
  
• No risk of damage to brand new furniture in transit to the other end of the world.
  
  
• Have the ability to buy additional matching furniture at a later date. We bought a large very distinctive leather sofa over from the UK. Would love to get another matching armchair now, but can't get it here (not to say that there aren't unique pieces over here as well).

juddy

Spot on well said...

kerry in sunny oz

We arrived with nothing,just suit cases with clothes, pictures and photos, oh and 3 children. We brought everything new, new beginning, new home and new life. We found our things from the UK would have looked different in our new house anyway so for us new everything. To be honest i have not missed a thing.

Good luck

MartinLuther

I'd ship anything you already have and buy new over here.

As you'll be new to the country you'll have to ask around and do some legwork to find the shops that meet your requirements. If you just go to Harvey Norman then yes you will find it expensive.

Remember with shipping you may have to wait for it to turn up or it may turn up too early and you'll have to store it.