tonz76

Hi all We are just waiting for the approval of our visa got a job offer in Invercargill south island and cant wait to get started. We have had a couple of the shipping companies around to quote (PSS. Pickfords, Crown and Doreebonner) volume is around 270 cubic foot so not really shipping a great deal. The quotes range from £1400 - £2300 (Crown ) Does anyone think that these prices are reasonable? Not sure if I will be able to knock them down a bit Can anyone recommend any cheaper companies

LukeandJo

Crown are known to be expensive.

Wessa

Tony,
Me and another 1 maybe two people on here are currently looking at using Pickfords and Robinsons. I have them coming round in the next week or two so i'l let you know what they quote me.

Gary.

Markk

Not sure if these are good or not as we shipped a lot more than that. What we did though was to go back the highest quoter and tell them what the others were quoting and asked them to at least match it. You can work your way through all of them like that. It's amazing how much they'll budge on price when it comes down to it!

Also make sure that they are all offering the same thing for the price. Insurance, customs fees, MAF etc. Some of the cheaper quotes might not contain everything you need.

Crown aren't always the most expensive, it depends who you are dealing with.

We used PSS and we thought they were good.

tonz76

yeah that be great to find out as a comparison. I also contacted Robinsons but they didnt seem too bothered about coming out and just gave me a quote by email.

tonz76

I thought PSS were the best of the lot when they came to quote and their quote was the cheapest

Si19761

John Mason's have come in with a good quote for us so might also be worth a try. I didn't even try Robinsons as I tried for 2 days to get into their website and decided that they couldn't have been in business....

gazmfc

Hi All, have a look at a thread titled shipping further down the front page, you may pick up some useful info on there.

Si19761

One step ahead after all the useful threads. We are going groupage which they have said will be maersk, timescale not such an issue for us.... the rest is just fingers crossed

tonz76

Just had a quote from Pearsons after a recommendation and they have quoted £1250. They have come in the cheapest although it was an email quote based on the same volume.

Jewelie38

We used John Masons, £2300 for a 20 foot container. We packed everything ourselves though, so all we needed was for the guys to load the container!
My advice would be to bring everything you can, most things are expensive over here due to supply and demand.

rackcatt

Hi can i ask did you have to take the goods to your container? I can't find a company that will let us pack ourselves, unless we take stuff to the container.

BEVS

Here you go. Shipping
and One More

BEVS

Who did you use for marine insurance and were they aware you packed your stuff yourselves.

Jewelie38

When I rang the shipping companies to get a quote I told them that I had already packed all our house up and only wanted them to quote me to load into a 20 foot container and do the usual stuff afterwards. (My husband had acquired many rolls of bubble wrap through his work so seemed the best idea at the time). I had three companies quote me then finally when we had negotiated a price and where happy we took John Masons offer. The companies seemed quite happy to quote, however, you will not be able to take out accidental cover, as afterall, you could have damaged the item during the packing. I took out total loss in case my container was lost, sank or had water damage, if I remember rightly I took this with John Mason's as well.
The only thing with packing yourself is you need to be very organised and keep a list of basically whats in each box (just the big things) eg. like books or tools etc. When the guys arrive to start loading the container, (the container comes to outside your home) you may have to transfer the list to their paperwork. I had to and it took me about 15-30 mins. Obviously you also have to number each box or item to correspond with your list.
We found this all very easy and container arrived very promptly, nothing broken and the guys this end were very careful and efficient in unloading and taking each item to the right rooms in the house. I would definately recommend John Masons. Hope this helps! x