GeoffM

Pickfords - I thought they handled the US end but (at least in my case) they contracted Graebel to do it. Fortunately they have a good reputation but for any quote you do get, make sure you get an answer as to who deals with the US end. Avoid any that won't give you an answer, and I'd be wary of those that say "we usually use...". There are some horror stories on here of people getting stung for non-existent customs charges (paperwork which I will be wanting to see this week!), lousy deliveries, etc.

Jerseygirl

Have you looked at the Wiki article? The OP's bits and bobs arrived within days. We used Pickfords...3 months door to door to the east coast.

celticgrid

I think that's a realistic range. We shipped 205 cubic feet and quotes ranged from 8 - 12 quid per cu ft.

Leaving aside the issue of whether things fit or not, reducing it to x pounds per cubic foot helps the decision making...you can get a whole expensive pile of books or CDs in a cubic foot, but only part of a duvet. It becomes easy to figure out what is worth shipping and what isn't.

MoshiMoshi

Hi Laurie,

My info is a couple of years old, but we used EuroUSA Moving and Shipping (I think it's connected to UPakWeShip) when we moved from Germany to Los Angeles. Like you, we didn't have any furniture -- just lots of books, clothes, kitchen stuff etc.

Back in 2010 it cost 750GBP for 10 x 30kg boxes. We also had to pay $90 when it got delivered (storage, customs, something like that).

I've just Googled EuroUSA and found some bad feedback. For what it's worth, EuroUSA seemed a bit hit-and-miss, but worked for us -- door-to-door service, and boxes arrived in good condition about 90 days after shipping. I packed everything myself.

LaurieHK

Hiya,

Yes have just read the Wiki article. That’s the first I’ve heard of them…what a help!!!
Thanks for pointing it out to me. Will now be reading every Wiki article on here!

Laurie

LaurieHK

Hi Celticgrid,

Thank you for the info. It’s hard to visualise how many cubic feet we might have, but I assume similar to you. Your quotes seem reasonable, so hopefully we’ll be able to ship everything we want to. May I ask who you decided to use in the end?

Regarding working everything out in £ per cubic feet. I have to admit I was being a complete dunce up until now and had assumed that they did it all by weight. Obviously, what you say makes complete sense, there no point paying through the nose to ship lightweight things like pillows that take up maximum space!

Thanks for the help!

Laurie

LaurieHK

Hi there,

Thanks so much, that’s really helpful! It sounds like you shipped a similar amount to us, and I’m expecting to have to pay between £800-1000 by the sound of things, which is doable in order to have all our stuff.

I’ll have a look at EuroUSA, I’m happy for the shipment to take a couple of months, so that seems like a good option.

Thanks again!

Laurie

kirstyp

Hi Laurie,

I just ran your list through our self survey calculator, it's hard to assess boxes without seeing them but I think you'd be more like 200cuft + when you include the skiing equipment.

The best thing to do is to invite 3 companies to visit and do a visual assessment, find out about your requirements and to give you a quote. These are free and no obligation and the only real way to get an accurate and fixed price with no nasty hidden charges later.

Sounds like you'd be looking for a groupage service - this is slower than your own container but you only pay for the space you use so you share the frieght costs with other customers moving to the same destination, which from the looks of your original post is what you're looking for in the cost vs. speed equation (http://britishexpats.com/articles/mo...hods-shipping/)

Make sure all 3 companies are members of FIDI FAIM, if it helps i wrote an article for British Expats a while back on how to go about getting quotes... http://britishexpats.com/articles/mo...als-quotation/

Hope that all helps and good luck!

LaurieHK

Hi KirstyP,

You are an absolute star! Thank you!

Yes, 200 cubic feet sounds about right. I would rather over estimate than under estimate at the moment! Best to prepare myself for worst case scenario.

Hopefully I should have some people round to give us some quotes this week. That way, I can start to work out whether it’s going to be feasible for us to move this way.

Will take a look at those articles now. Thanks

Have a great day!

Laurie

celticgrid

The company we used will be no good to you, unless you are starting from the Isle of Man - we used a local company who were very familiar with international shipping.

For general interest, our process used Contour Logistics at the US end and I found them very good indeed. No hidden charges, no funny stuff, and when we suddenly needed them to hold the stuff in storage for a while they were very helpful and reasonably priced.

LaurieHK

Haha, starting from Zurich, Switzerland….I’m not sure they’ll cover us. Good news on the Contour Logistics, I will look out for them. Thank you

Laurie

GeoffM

Bill for $183.40 today, with an estimate of 3-5 days still until I get my stuff, once it arrives at their warehouse - goodness knows where it's been for the last week as the tracking thing said the container had left the port on a truck. I mention this as Customs are a bit of a law unto themselves when it comes to deciding what to exam, in what detail - and thus what the end user gets charged. We are sharing a container with 6 others, and my stuff is probably a good 1/3 of the container, so $183 is probably not too bad...

LaurieHK

Good news that it’s on its way though! Do you know what items customs decided to charge you for? Or is it an all over ‘handling’ fee?

Glad you can breathe easy though! It’s amazing getting all your stuff delivered after so long, it’s like christmas! Enjoy

Laurie

Jerseygirl

It's probably the handling fee. We have had members whose shipping company have tried to charge them for the customs inspection when there wasn't one.

LaurieHK

Crikey, that’s sneaky!

At least it’s not a huge expense and maybe something i’ll factor into moving costs so that i’m not peeved if it happens to me!

Laurie