Shipment costs London to LA
 

Hope the forum folk don't mind me asking a personal question but how much has it cost, in your experience, to ship your household goods (by sea) from London to LA?

I've now had 2 quotes that have both come in around £5,500 to ship approx. 850 cu ft of goods.

I thought I was going fairly minimalistic so was left a little shocked by the quotes.

Any advice of who you used, how much you shipped and what you paid would be gratefully received,

Thanks in advance.

Re: Shipment costs London to LA
 

That price sounds like an entire container to yourself.

Re: Shipment costs London to LA
 

As GeoffM says that sounds like the price for the exclusive use of a container. Did you ask for exclusive use, or did you ask for shared? Shared will take longer but is cheaper.

Re: Shipment costs London to LA
 

Appreciate the replies!

The 2 quotes I've had we're both by companies that only offer exclusive use of a container.

If I were to share, is it as simple as cutting the quote in half to get a rough estimate of what I could expect to pay?

Thanks

Re: Shipment costs London to LA
 

It doesn't reduce by half (assuming only 2 people share), as there is some extra handling involved. But a shared container should be significantly cheaper. The major downside to a shared container is it extends the delivery time. You would need to ask whoever quotes how long they allow for a shared container, but then allow for it to be a couple of weeks longer. The unknown part is having to wait for the shipper to arrange another shared load, or loads depending on how many it takes to fill the container.

Re: Shipment costs London to LA
 

Send me a private message and I will give you 2 people to contact who can give you pricing and are based here in California. Your best rate is a USA company bringing goods over, not a UK company sending your goods, its called cabotaging and they have people ready to share all the time.

Cheers, Mark.

Re: Shipment costs London to LA
 

Why not post the details in this thread...the info may be useful to others?

Re: Shipment costs London to LA
 

I've found my invoice for 452cu ft for £2100, but add another 10% for insurances, taxes, etc. That includes them packing the stuff in their own boxes (required for insurance purposes), shipping, basic customs fee, delivery to our address in CA, unpacking onto flat surfaces (not into cupboards), and taking away the packaging material. Note that there are uncontrollable customs fees depending on what level of inspection customs decide to do - you have zero control over this unfortunately, except by not packing anything suspicious and hoping the other customers of the same container do the same.

This was with Allied Pickfords who contracted Graebel on the US end. There's a website called Moving Scam where you can check the reputation of the US outfit - always make sure the shipper tells you who will handle the US end. The estimate for door-to-door time was 9-13 weeks but ended up being about 17 due to a broken ship and incompetence. The sole use of a container was only a couple of weeks shorter for the estimated time.

Re: Shipment costs London to LA
 

That would be just over half the volume of a 20ft container (1360cu ft).

Re: Shipment costs London to LA
 

for exclusive use of 20f container (and full packing unpacking) we got quoted £5K (excluding insurance) shipped to LA port but final destination to SF so I assume it would be cheaper if final destination is LA.
For our actual 640cu ft goods groupage shipping we got a quote of £2800 excluding insurance shipped directly to Oakland.
hope it helps

Re: Shipment costs London to LA
 

I'd be very interested to hear about this option too. Could you possibly post on BE?

Re: Shipment costs London to LA
 

hmmmm......looks like "cabotaging" according to a Google search as well as a specific wikipedia definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabotage - is NOT what people looking to transport goods from UK to US (or vice versa) are looking for......

Re: Shipment costs London to LA
 

its people private details who are very good friends of mine, if people want their private information then they private message me so I can give it securely.

Re: Shipment costs London to LA
 

Cabotage is a term used by brokers and shipping companies to allow containers to be "Shared" between nations and who then owns the rights to the conatiner after it is emptied of all goods. Its not set in stone, its an option......not all carriers use it. Like I said I can give the details of the people to contact who can help and who can probably cut the costs of your freight, without promises.

Re: Shipment costs London to LA
 

Though you may have good and genuine intentions, this sounds rather scammy to me. Are the goods going to be insured thoughout? Does the company (is it even a company) have appropriate licenses? Does the owner of the goods have recourse should things go wrong? I'd be wary... :unsure: