Originally Posted by sparkley23

I thought it was a good deal too. I was quoted -
7 boxes, £350.20
8 boxes - £370.60
10 boxes - £404.60
15 boxes - £540.60
20 boxes - £557.67

So you can see the more you ship, the cheaper it gets - only £17 diff between 15 and 20 boxes!

I basically logged on loads of websites and got quotes. Nearly all of them are actually run by Excess baggage - London Baggage, Company, 1st Contact, but they market themselves under different names. Def shop around, the prices vary enormously. I was quoted £560 by Anglo Pacific for 10 boxes, the same amount could have got me 20 boxes with 1st Contact!

The boxes I chose were T Cartons with a max weight of 35kg per box. If you put all heavy stuff in, like books, stereos etc, they will weigh about 40kg so you just have to mix it up a bit. I put all my heavy stuff in like books, but also put light things like clothes to make them less than 35kg. They are 4.5cu Ft and are 61x51x41cm or 24x20x16 inches.
Hope that helps

Originally Posted by DianneH68

Thanks to this very informative post, I am now using 1st contact - they are dropping off the boxes tomorrow

Originally Posted by Clairertw

Hi Dianne - have you started packing yet? would be interested to know roughly how much stuff you get in each 1st contact box e.g. no of books or items of clothing?

i'm flying a few weeks after you and am struggling with how many boxes i'll need. i know i can order more boxes from 1st Contact than i need but its more about the need to budget the shipping costs really. thanks and good luck with the packing!

Originally Posted by DianneH68

Hi Claire,
Have started packing today - it's a nightmare .
The boxes are pretty big - can't really say how many items of clothing because there are so many!
But I have loads and loads of clothes and shoes and have got them all into three and a half boxes.
Probably at a rough guess you can get twice as much as you can in a suitcase.
I'd say we'll be using a box per room eg, one for kitchen stuff, one for all the stuff in the office, one for CDs and videos.
We've got 20 boxes but may well not use them all.
One word of warning - we've discovered that we can't fit any of our pictures in the boxes as they are a bit too big...and they are not particularly big pictures. So if you have anything like that it may be wise to ask for a few of different shapes and sizes. Our pictures are now going to have to be left behind
Good luck with the move

Originally Posted by jossy

Hiya

Someone on here recommended a while back - Advance Forwarding in Derby.

I contacted them (Jayne has been amazingly helpful) the price I have for 2 cubic metres (16 50cmx50x50 boxes) is £480 including all admin, this is door to port ans will pay the delivery the other ewnd from port to door if I need to as it is cheaper to oragnise from there

I would recommend Advance anytime

Jo

Originally Posted by suebrennan

I decided after much humming and hawing to ship 4 boxes to Oz. These included linen. clothes, photos from my travels and other stuff. Now having been in Oz for 7 weeks or so and still no sign of my boxes which are Sydney bound and yes I know that I am in Brisbane (will spare you the logic) - I have nearly bought everything that I thought I was going to save money on by shipping them.

Just bear that in mind if you are in the same boat.

Sue

Maybe I should take this up???

Originally Posted by NeilCk

We are thinking of selling our furniture and just shipping personal stuff, this looks a cheaper option and the money we save on shipping we can use to buy new furniture. Just one thing to be aware of on the 1st contact web site its says there may be a quarantine inspection cost on top of the shipping cost this it says can be between 40 & 200 dollars depends if and how many boxes they inspect. Neil.

Originally Posted by Jockstar

If it was just 4 boxes and nothing else. Then why did you not just fly them over? More pricey but far quicker.

Originally Posted by Mochinbach

What have you done baout not having an address? Did you get them sent to the port?

Originally Posted by steved

Am I missing something here? I just went to the 1st Contact website and was quoted £564 to send 7 tea chests. How did you get quoted £350?

Cheers,

sd.