becky667

Hi everyone

Can somebody give me an idea how container shipping works? Do you pay for a volume / section etc in the container?

What sort of costing in involved?

Companies worth using?

Thanks

Becky

Kags1694

Hi Becky,
We have just used PSS, they pop out to your home and give you a quote.
We only need 1/2 a container (we sold our house back in April, and gave alot of our things away to family members). We got our quote down to approx £2400.00 which included a motorbike.

I would get a couple of quotes, because you can get your price down.

The two men that came out and packed where great, hopefully our container will arrive in Auckland middle to end of January (You can trace the container on there website using your customer no. )

Good luck, when are you hoping to go?

CarolineSwan

Hiya


we decided to sell of some things and used seven seas to post our personal items over but now have decided to send some things. we are using anglo pacific for this. We are sending 1 superking bed 1 double bed lots of bedroom furniture plus our corner suite from our garden room and 5 large boxes for his tools etc and this costing us 1950 not bad considering the last qouote was for 4k and all thats extra is a 3 and 2 seater suite a single bed and a desk oh and a dining table n chairs set ..we wonder where was the xtra cost as not much of a difference

caz

teebrown

i am just about to decided between PSS and Allied Movers (these are in NZ and use Wentworth movers in UK), they are both about the same for a 20ft container it is costing us approx £3,400. But thinking about it, the price for PSS should come down a little due to the cut in tax to 15%, so i am going to phone them tomorrow about that!!

We are shipping a complete 3 bed house + contents of the garage in a 20ft container.

BEVS

Contact several international shippers and have them all come around to give you a quote. They will let you know whether it will be a 40 foot / 20 foot or a part container that will be needed. If it is a part container , then that is called groupage .

If you can only part fill a container, then this can be quite expensive to do , so you should compare the price given with that of a 20' container. Also, with groupage, this can take far longer to arrive in NZ than a sole container.

Once you have a good 4 to 6 quotes, then you can play them off against each other to get the best possible price.

Check about the amount of storage days they offer . Also check what happens at the NZ end. i.e. Who will deliver the goods . You want a door to door service . Ask them about the MAF clearance fees and how the container is cleared at the NZ port so it can be imported into NZ. You don't want any sudden $$$ surprises the NZ end. Sometimes if the shippers use a delivery company the NZ end, then the delivery company will try to levy an extra charge which they call a 'service fee' just so your container can be cleared from customs. MAke sure you know if you will be hit for this or not. You also want to be clear that once your container is arrived, then it will be delivered without delay and not stored at the port ! If it has to be stored at the port , for any reason, then you want to know that the storage is built into the cost of the shipping.

The shippers will walk around your house asking you what you will and will not be taking with you. They will also alarm you over such items as Christmas decorations , camping equip etc telling you what they think you may or may not bring in to New Zealand. In my opinion, and it is only my opinion, you should look to bringing everything and as much as you can with you.

If any of the shippers state that you may not bring a certain item into New Zealand , then do check with us lot here and also MAF by emailing them. MAF will be very happy to let you know the rules about any specific item. There are plenty of folks that have not brought items which there shippers told them were a no-no, only to find that it was , in fact , perfectly possible to bring those items in. We were told, for instance, that our camping gear was a no-no which was a load of rubbish. I know of someone else that was told no wood artefacts or wicker and another where it was indicated no feather duvets.

With some items , it will be about cleaning them properly and then declaring them for possible inspection by MAF.

When you are going over your personal effects, do keep a list of anything and everything that MAF could be interested in. i.e. camping gear, bikes, artefacts, tools , vacuum cleaner etc. and what you did to clean them. You will need that info. for your MAF declarations the NZ end , so the container can be cleared for import into NZ.

The other thing to consider is marine insurance. It is very wise to have marine insurance for your container. Each shipper will let you know which marine insurer they use. Do look closely at the cost for this. You do not have to use their preferred marine insurer. You can shop around for that. The premium is dependent on the value ££ of your personal effects. You will cost that yourself.

With regard to packing up your house, then the shippers will do all that. It is best to let them do this for every item as this can be a condition of the marine insurance. In other words if you pack your own, you may not be covered by the insurance you take out.

As stated, you will be able to track your container using your Bill of Lading number.

There are several international shippers which will be listed in the UK yellow pages. We used Curtiss who operate out of Portsmouth.

Others include
Crown
Anglo Pacific
White and Co.


HTH

becky667

Hi

I think that its going to work out really expensive for us! Basically I am looking to ship camping equipment, clothing, plenty of shoes, text books, DVD player and DVDs.

Other than that the only stuff we would maybe ship are washing machine and perhaps bikes.

Whats the best way to do this? I certainly won't need a 20ft container at a cost of £2000+

Thanks

Becky

Trev and Jayne

Hi Becky

It looks like we're in the same position as you aswell. Were not taking over any furniture but are taking 2 sets golf clubs, 2 set bikes, clothes and shoes, books and DVD's, camping equipment, dvd player, hi-fi and a few personal belongings. We are going to do it by cubic foot instead. We asked at the NZ exhibition and they charge you by cubic foot and not weight. I called Anglo Pacific and told the guy what we had and he roughly estimated 120 cubic foot (although I think he probably over estimated this a bit to allow) and they qouted £805. Im going to call PSS and John Mason etc at lunch today to see what they can offer. I wasn't sure if you could negotiate when shipping like this because I could negotiate 120 cubic foot with another company for cheaper but then if we didnt use that much space they would probably just charge us at their standard rate again. I will let you know if I find anything interesting out today. Were also thinking of just putting all our DVD's in wallets rather than their boxes for space as we have loads!

Jayne

Soppydot4

We used John Mason and we managed to fill a 20' container at a price of £3,000. We took almost everything we could apart from the lawnmower and gardening equipment (now wish we brought these too). The guys came and packed it all up which was great. My only problem was the length of time it took for us to get our belongings. The container was packed up on 26 August and left our old house. The container left the UK on 1 September and we didn't received our belongings until last Tuesday, 25 November, some 12 weeks later. It took at least 6-4 weeks longer than the quoted 6-8 weeks. Apparently John Mason had used a shipping company which takes the containers so far and then leaves them on a port somewhere until another ship going in the right direction comes to pick it up. I found out ours had sat on a port somewhere in Europe for 12 days waiting to be moved. This must have happened a few times for it to have taken 12 weeks.

Wooly_Cow

Bev covered most things but just two thigns to add:

1) In this thread a lot of people are mentioning camping, golf and other outdoor pursuits equipment. You need to clean this well using diluted Jayes fluid (as the smell stays till the MAF guys inspect it and they know you've disinfected) - BUT do expect to pay for an inpsection of each of these items. unless they are caked in mud you will be fine but you will have to pay for the check! (Tip here, make sure no box is label "Misc" as the MAF will want to look at that too)

2) Despite obviously knowing what Wellignton is like (hilly with lots of steps and bad access to many houses) a lot of movers will charge you extra for door to door service if your new house isn't within 10-15 metre of levle access! As you probably don't know where you are going to live before you get here, make sure you know if your movers will sting you for this in case you get that sort of house / flat

3) MAF inspections: Some firms will ask you to pay them to organise the MAF inspection...be warned they normally add a 'handling charge'. if you can find out what the MAF costs will be and either pay directly to MAF or only pay the agents what the actual costs are (I heard of one couple whose contianer was held to randsome by a movers unless they paid the full MAF fees plus very high handling charge)

Hope this helps