engineer80

Has anyone shared a shipping container as opposed to forking out for a whole one to themselves? If you have, what was your experience and did it cut costs for you significantly?

When the time comes, I don't think we're going to have a lot to bring out with us, except clothes, kitchen utensils, a sofa and a bed. We plan on leaving some stuff behind with my mum until we're more settled and a good friend did mention sharing a container for the stuff we will be taking. Thanks in advance for any replies

Portsmouthcouple

When we moved we left the sofas and kitchen table and chairs and spare bed in order to sell the house, but then we were told we would share a container because of this and saved ourselves 2 grand, of which we now will buy far better furniture over here!!! It will take a little longer as you need to wait for the container to be full, but to be honest it is worth it.

Piff Poff

We had a shared container. We were told it would take 6 weeks for delivery, what we were not told was that it was six weeks to deliver ONCE the container was full. We didn't find that out until we called to find out when we could expect delivery and was told it was still at the port waiting to be loaded.


When the container did arrive there was a dockers strike, this was followed by a truckers strike (beyond the shippers control and unusual I would hope).

We did save money but we have always wished we brought more, we literally brought clothes and sentimental stuff, daughters could not leave behind toys and OH's tools.

kmcguinness

We shared a container, we used Robinson's in the UK they were brilliant, we shipped pretty much everything from our 3 bed house, garden stuff and OH tools. we used half a container and robinsons told us the container had another booking so would be leaving the Uk 6 days after us. it cost us 2350 pounds we had 25 boxes, 3 beds, 2 sofas, tables, garden furniture etc etc.

they did the itemised list it took 4.5 weeks to get to vancouver we drove down to meet with the customs people presented the itemised list and copy of work permit and passports, was there for 10 minutes by the time we drove home Williams shipping ( robinsons counterparts here in vancouver) rang us to arrange delivery 5 days later it came loaded into a large truck and they moved everything into where we wanted it and took the packaging away. very easy transition and worth the money, we didnt bring electricals except lamps which OH re-wired--- well i liked them too much to leave them. were glad we did because furniture isnt cheap here, you have enuf expense unless you have a good supply of it then you neednt worry.

good luck

kae

Ducks

We also shared a container from London to Nova Scotia. If I remember correctly we had about 90 items in all (including about 40 boxes which we packed ourselves). I think we probably used around half or just over of a 20' container and it cost in the region of £2500 including packing, collection and delivery. It took about 10 weeks to arrive because instead of going straight to Halifax it went to Montreal then Toronto then back to Halifax (apparently this was going to be quicker / easier than waiting for another part pack to Halifax).

We were a bit worried after seeing how they threw our things about, but in the end we only had some very minor damage to about 4 items (a broken plate and glass picture frame for example). I think this was more to do with the fact that it was unloaded and reloaded a number of times, which is something you should probably consider with a part container (it didn't occur to me that this would happen).

Good luck with your decision! We're also going through the NSNP and are at the same stage as you (except we took the gamble of coming out here already!)

kirstyp

Shared containers (groupage) is a really common occurrance and can significantly cut your costs as all the freight costs are shared. Only downside is it can be a slower option as the Removal Company will need to wait until all the space is sold and items collected before the container can be shipped so it can take a couple more weeks than exclusive use, but if speed is less of a key decision factor than price I would definately recommend it.

Chookie

We only brought the irreplaceable stuff - some family heirlooms, photographs, artwork and ornaments, a few of the kids most precious toys and stuff like that. In the end, we had 10 boxes that were shipped over, so we ended up sharing a container.

A bit like PiffPoff, we had to wait until the container was full for it to be shipped and it was something like 6 months before we got our stuff.

Fortunately, none of it was absolutely necessary for us to have straight away, most of it was just sentimental stuff.

It was very much cheaper however, just that we had to wait ages to get it all.

We decided it was not worth paying to ship cheap Ikea furniture over here seeing as there was an Ikea in Calgary... We went and furnished the house with the money we saved in not having a container to ourselves. And as for the kids toys, a couple of days after landing we took the 4 kids to toys R us, gave them a couple of trolleys and told them to fill them... they had a blast!

The4BellsLondon

6 months - blimey - ours was packed 20th Nov and landed in Van 10th Jan!! shared container

removalizer

Sometimes it is possible to wait 6 months, it depends on how much traffic the shipping company has to fill the container, if he doesn't have enough then it can take a while.

DanielM

We're only planning on sending 25 to 30 square feet of stuff.
Is it worth trying to share a container, or are there other ways to send smaller amounts of stuff?

removalizer

There are 2 ways to send it

!. Shared container where you may have to wait a while or it could only be a couple of months, however this is the cheapest option.

2. LCL or less than container load

This is ideal for boxes or items which can easily fit on a pallet, it goes as a shared container load but is quicker and can be cheaper, disadvantages are that it is no good for bulky or awkward items such as settees or beds, also delivery can be difficult as you are dealing with freight agents rather than removals agents however it can be arranged. (SNIP)