Re: Best Shipping company?
 

Update from us!
We went with White and Co and got our insurance through Letton Percival. White and Co were very competitive, as were GB Liners. Both quoted very close to four thousand pounds for a full packing service on a 20ft container, Derby to Vancouver.
Our container has arrived at Vancouver earlier than expected. My wife is here in Canada at the moment just on a fortnight visit and we weren't expecting it to arrive while she was here. We are signing for it on Wednesday and it is being delivered to the house on Thursday.
My wife packed all of our small things such as books and CDs etc and it was all in storage briefly before shipping (not preference particularly, just sensible due to access difficulties for a large vehicle at my home in the UK). One issue was that when they collected it all it appeared that there was a box she had filled which was not there, which is a bit strange, but maybe it is just an error on her part or theirs in inventory - we will have to wait and see. It contained books, which I cannot see anyone wanting to pinch, so I am fairly sure it will be there.
We haven't got much fragile stuff - only 2 glass table tops and a mirror.
Everything seems in order so far.
I will update again when the things arrive.

Re: Best Shipping company?
 

Well iam thinking about using DHL to air freight my Shippment.

Hand tools in a tool box & a few Personal belongings.

Does anyone know about GST on the shipment? I mean 5% of the decleared value might hit $1000CAN & Customs charges.

Re: Best Shipping company?
 

OK, update here (wife reporting this time, since I am the one who packed it all and now also have unpacked quite a lot of it as well:p!!)
Anyway, I couldn't see anything missing (although there were a couple of mis-labels with the same number turning up twice on the stuff White and Co had packed and a couple of numbers missing but it all evened out in the end). Glass table tops arrived fine, as did old heavy mirror - they were very well packed and I am happy they are safe.
One issue was that I did pay for a full pack and unpack, excluding the boxes I had packed myself, of course as they are just personal items, but when the stuff arrived there were lots of boxes that had been packed by the company and so of course I had no idea what they had packed in them and yet the delivery guys said that they were not paid to unpack boxes, only sort the large furniture items so they wouldn't unpack them. I couldn't know what was in each one and it was such a mishmash of things to fill space that I couldn't tell them the right room to put the box in so i ended up carrying a lot of stuff around the house while unpacking these. It didn't matter all that much to us as I happened to be in Canada when it all arrived and so I did a lot of the unpacking of those boxes rather than my OH take time off work, but it was not what I had expected or paid for.
Overall, I was happy with the service and delivery was much quicker than I had expected, which was also great for us. My OH is slowly unpacking he books, CDs and ornaments etc which are not essential, but everything else seems fine. I would not have any issue recommending White and Co, but I would advise getting insurance from a broker as we did, not through the company. It is a LOT cheaper and no hassle at all to arrange.
To put people's mind at rest, signing for the container at Border Control in Vancouver was a doddle - 5 minutes, 3 questions and that was that, so do not worry about that part!
Just to clarify, we are on a TWP and he did not complete a Goods To Follow when he first got there to work but that was not an issue either. They were happy with the consignment note, the packing list from White and Co and the insurance document, plus his passport and TWP.:thumbsup:

Re: Best Shipping company?
 

I have just shipped a box via DHL you state they are your own items and used you will not pay anything they will ask you for a copy of your pr card and passport and then deliver.

Re: Best Shipping company?
 

Have posted a few times at various stages of moving across to Ontario ... and now its done, I thought I would finish my input!

We have been in our house for a few weeks now, but the furniture arrived yesterday. We used Pickfords in the UK and it was delivered by the same company (Allied) here yesterday.

The guys and gals that did the packing (20ft container full to the max!) were great, professional and friendly, although demonstrated some lack of awareness in packing one or two items - bikes somewhat roughly dropped into bike boxes, and they packed loads of items that should not have come - left seperate in a 'not to pack box' - oils, vehicle fluids etc (!) and, now we have unpacked most stuff, one or two boxes were dubiously packed ... but so far just one broken garden pot ...

The guys that unloaded at this end, same story - very professional and helpful ... were even keen to reassemble flat packed items (even though this was explicitly excluded from the quote) and were very efficient and quick at unloading. They were no overly impressed with the quality of the packing at the UK end and reported this themselves, and were really helpful in offering advice if we needed to make a claim.

So packing and unpacking pretty good... BUT, the office side of things was terrible! The UK end were supposed to arrange everything ... there were two families moving, they offered us shared use of a 40ft container to lower costs, and the two families work also used pickfords to ship 10 boxes, which were also going to be added to the 40ft. This was arranged, and then, a week before it all was supposed to happen, we discovered we had different move coordinators in the office, the right paper work was not done, so we could not share a container, and therefore our stuff was going groupage! After some complaining and moaning it did get sorted... but the office seemed disorganised, and incommunicative between their local sales rep and the various move coordinators. Even to the point that after we had left, and the new people had moved into our house in the UK, Pickfords turned up to collect the 10 work boxes ... these were never supposed to be collected from our house, but from the OH work in Edinburgh!

So all the important stuff was right, the cost was excellent, front end services pretty good ... but the office side of things was very poor.

Re: Best Shipping company?
 

Hi

We moved to Victoria, BC 8 weeks ago and used Robinsons with Williams this end, service great, price competitive, no breakages at all.

We only bought half a container of gear but some of it was heavy duty tools so very relieved, we let the guys from Robinsons pack our gear UK end as we were advised much less likely for customs to go through it all if movers pack everything, no issues with getting goods cleared at Victoria customs.

Must make a mention for GB liners though who were the most proactive at the quote stage when we did think about shipping out our vehicle also (which we didn't in the end, but wished we had, but thats another story!) unfortunately the difference in price between GB Liners and Robinsons was a bit much, we did negotiate with GB's but time was getting on so we went with Robinsons.

Juliet

Re: Best Shipping company?
 

Hello,

I just wanted to add a word of warning about the Canadian side.
I've moved from London to Montreal and hired White and Company. They did everything as they said, so so far I cannot say anything negative about them. But they contracted the Canadian side - container collection, custom clearing and delivery to Tippets (or Tippet Richardson as they are sometimes called), a company based in the Toronto area.

Tippets collected my container mid July and agreed to hold the delivery to my home until 1 August. Since then, in the past four weeks, they have promised on many occasions to deliver my container on their "first truck to Montreal". Recently they have added that they would "rush" the delivery. They have made shipping my belongings a really stressful and unpleasant experience; and I have started to worry that I will never see my belonging again. I'm going on holiday to London next week, so I would be lucky if I see my container before October.

I have contacted White & Co, they have sent Tippets a few emails, with no results. As my contract is with White & Co, I'm not too sure as to what I should do. I am thinking of contacting BAR (the British Association of Removers) to see what they would advise me to do, but I'll be glad for any suggestions!

So, yes, White & Co seems an OK company but do stay clear of Tippets, especially if you are not moving to Toronto.

Ariane

Re: Best Shipping company?
 

We're planning on going with Fox, anybody used them? Originally we'd looked at 1st Move and City Movers, dunno had never heard of them before, but they both had questionable reviews, and Fox is a bit local so we thought they'd be a good bet, just wanted an opinion on their international side of things really.

Re: Best Shipping company?
 

just had a quote from GB liners... OMG! 40ft £8400! thats without insurance.

they are having a bubble bath surely! i was baulking at £5,000!

might be changing plans and just visiting ikea when we land...:confused:

Re: Best Shipping company?
 

If you've a 40ft container's worth of stuff, how likely is it you can replace it for less then the shipping cost?

Re: Best Shipping company?
 

Reasonable point. Other option is get a 20ft and downsize the replaceable stuff like bed/massive cinema style sofa, etc.

I have irreplaceable items, and a whole bunch of other stuff I can't bear to leave behind, so we will be shipping SOMETHING but if we go for all of it or not is the question.

Was just really shocked given the other prices people have posted on here!

Re: Best Shipping company?
 

We also had a quote from GB Liners.They were very proactive afterwards and kept knocking the price down each time I spoke to them, so it may be worth seeing how close you can get to the price you had in mind.
In fact this was the deciding factor for us between them and Robinsons who we used, I thought if they could afford to reduce the price so much, they were obviously ripping us off big time to start with!
Good luck

Re: Best Shipping company?
 

yeah i actually chatted to the guy about how i hate "window sales companies tactics" of having a price that bears no relation to the reality and how i wanted his best price from the start because i want it done right, and wont be expecting to have to barter. that said, im not made of money and every penny counts so i emailed him back and said i was expecting a hell of a lot less than that, maybe i have been misinformed and i will contact him again if the other people i have quoting me come back higher/the same etc.
he was talking about cutting off £200 ish for another client so that he could get the job and i told him i hate that, id rather people were just honest with how much it will cost them plus a reasonable mark up ( they have to eat as well) messing about with "but im not going to charge you that... im going to charge you the bonus low price of XYZ..." makes my blood boil.

naieve.. apparently so!:angel_smile:

Re: Best Shipping company? - a word of warning about White & Company
 

I used White & Company to move from London to Montreal. My things were packed mid May and only reached me last week... At first all went well, once my container was collected in Canada, the shipping contractor refused to deliver it, as it was too far/ inconvenient for him (Tippets). After I threatened taking the matter with BAR, the contractor subcontracted to a third contractor.

When unpacking my boxes, I was shocked by the lack of care of the White & Co team: one cabinet had been boxed with all its contents, unprotected (plates!!). This seems to apply to most of the packing. Clothes were dumped into large boxes, and all arrived very creased. Lamps were also dumped and arrived half broken. The feet of a chest of drawers had been pulled apart, so that the chest fitted in the box...

I had hesitated between GB Liners and White, and I would definitely not choose White again. They were competitive on price, but now there is the all headache to get the damaged fixed. I feel lucky that my container even reached me, after it sat for nearly 2 months in Toronto.

Re: Best Shipping company?
 

Hello, only sent 6 boxes so we went with Excess Baggage, all agreed that the boxes would be delivered in 8 to 10 days.

Well here we are 23 days later and my boxes have been to Montreal then Halifax, then back to Montreal, then back to Halifax, then Moncton now they are in St Johns (NL) having been delivered and signed for by someone/thing called A94 Midland!

Now excess baggage deal with DHL/Loomis over here and the lady at the DHL office in Halifax has been very good, my contract was for door to door delivery in 8 to 10 days so the latest e-mail from DHL in Halifax to St Johns is asking who signed for the boxes as the consignee has not received them, so kids toys, photos other sentimental items and my tools I fear are lost in Atlantic Canada, thanks for reading