britlady3131

Hi
We moved to to Kansas City four years ago and now want to bring our furniture home to the Uk.
Our experience of shipping it out was horrendous, the company were unprofessional and the whole experience is not one I would like to repeat.
iIt took 16 weeks to arrive!
Can anyone give us a recommendation for a quality, and efficient service.
Also how long do most shipping containers take to arrive?

Thank you

Pulaski

Your experience is going to be specific to the company, and potentially even the team assigned to pack your furniture, so unless you find a local recommendation, a generic "Acme Van Line was great" comment isn't going to help you.

If you pick a day when the company you contract to pack and ship your stuff is already busy then they may subcontract the work, and add a mark-up, so I would recommend booking in plenty of time.

The shipping container will take around six weeks, port-to-port, to reach the UK. As you are so far inland I would allow an extra week.

My personal tip would be cautious about taking much of your American furniture to the UK. The furniture we brought from the UK looks tiny in our US home, and most of our American-bought furniture wouldn't fit in a typical British home.

kirstyp

hi Britlady,

Transit time can depend on the method of shipment you use. Was yours a shared container service or your own exclusive use container? Sole use containers will be round 6-8 weeks door to door as Pulaski said, to allow time for inland transport, customs clearance etc. If you want a quick service but still need to share a container because you don't have a huge volume of belongings then ask about LCL services. This means that the removal company will send your belongings in a wooden crate via a consolidation service rather than waiting for their own customers to fill the rest of your container, so it's only marginally slower than your own container.

If you're coming back to the UK you can use a removal company based in the UK or in America so you have quite alot of choice. We would recommend using a FIDI FAIM certified mover to help reduce the risk of something going wrong. FIDI movers are pre-vetted at regular audits to make sure they meet over 200 quality standards for international moving. You can find a list of certified movers on their website at www.fidi.org

Hope that helps? We've got lots more tips about finding movers and international shipping over on our BE International Removals vendor forum here which might be of further use.

britlady3131

Hi Kirsty P
Thank you for this info and hadn't considered a separate container.
I would really like the quickest way possible but the fact we are so far inland is going to add weeks to the journey.
maybe we could send some by air

kirstyp

If there are a few items you'd like urgently then a separate airfreight shipment is a good idea, you can ask your removal company for an additional quote at the same time as the rest of your goods. If it's only a couple of cases worth you may also want to consider excess baggage if it's feasible to take it with you when you fly.

Pulaski

Being "so far in land" isn't going to add "weeks" to the journey. Sure, it'll add time, but not much - it's only a couple of days drive from Kansas city, to, say, Baltimore. It'll take a few extra days to schedule too, but overall I doubt it would take more than an additional week to the over all shipping time.

kirstyp

I'd definitely agree, especially as for many locations there will be an inland container terminal so the container will go by rail from the port.