foreigngirl

Hi everyone,
I'm temporarily back in the UK trying to sort out shipping, etc. I'm having a few people come over next week to give me some quotes. What should I be asking them? At the moment I have:
- price (well, duh)
- is insurance included
- does it include packing and repacking
- door to door?
- any additional charges at the other end
- shipping time

Anything else?
Thank you.

Yandros

Things I recall about our shipping are:
- Insurance was more negotiable than basic cost; we got ours down by about 1% from the original quote, which if you're moving a houseful of stuff is a reasonable saving.
- Try to get insurance for pairs/groups included in the standard insurance (eg normally if one dinner plate from a matching dinner service is broken the insurance will only replace that one. Pairs/groups insurance means it will replace all the plates or possibly all the dinner service).
- Also mold & mildew insurance can be included which they may try to charge extra for; again we got ours in the main quote while still getting the % down.
- 2 out of 3 of the companies we got quotes from significantly underestimated the volume of stuff we had. You will likely be responsible for this (ie you pay for actual volume shipped once it's all packed) so maybe allow for some extra (esp if you are getting a container exclusively and you're near its capacity). Foxes (Steve Blackmore I think) were the only company that gave us a realistic volume estimate.
- When we were planning our move there was a possibility that we would need to store stuff for a while. This is much cheaper in the UK than in Canada. Foxes offered us free UK storage for up to six weeks (I think) and negotiated a better deal if we needed it in Canada. In the end we didn't need it, but you never know.
- Ask about routes and timings. One company was planning to get our stuff to Calgary via Vancouver, another shipped to the East Coast and then by train across country. The Vancouver route would have taken about 2 weeks more and cost more. No prizes for guesing which way we went.
- Try to find out prices in Canada. Insurance is based on this and furniture seems to be more expensive here. If you have to make an insurance claim
and you've under insured based on Canadian prices you may not get enough to replace what ever item was broken/damaged.
That's it for now.

hamazz

my 2 cents wort

if not taking your own personal container then be prepared to wait a bit, while the shipper find someone else to fill the container to share. this can sometimes take a while, sometimes months, i know they normally offer free storage but the headache of arriving the other side and waiting the extra few weeks for your items.

hamazz

Aviator

Shipping is a la carte - You tell them what you want. Insurance is never included and if you self pack, make sure you can get insurance at all. Marine insurance also works differently to most other insurances, so be familiar with how to value the items, most work on average weighted value at destination.

Air freight is a few days, sea is 4-6 weeks depending on final destination. LTL may take a week or two longer. You can do your own inbound clearances or they do them for you. Your choice.

foreigngirl

Thank you everyone. Lots of very useful advice!