Shipping Companies

Taslim · Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2004 8:18 am Post subject: Shipping Companies

Hi All,

Can anyone tell me if they've used or heard of, Alltrans aka Excess Baggage (http://www.excess-baggage.com). I've been getting quotes on shipping our stuff over to Wellington from Edinburgh and their quote is by far the most favourable...They are fully bonded and seem to have a wide network in the UK.

We don't have much furniture to ship just books and personal stuff. So I'd expect the quote to be less.

Am I missing something? Confused

DioneB · Posted: Wed Mar 17, 2004 10:28 am Post subject:

Hi

I have a number of kiwi friends who have used Excess Baggage to move their stuff back and been very happy with the service they have received.
I think we'll use either them or Anglo Pacific.

Cheers

Dione

rebecca · Posted: Thu Mar 18, 2004 11:10 pm Post subject:

Hi

We had two quotes, one from Anglo-pacific and the other from PSS. We decided to go with PSS as their quote was £500 cheaper!! But they both seemed very professional.
What PSS are really like only time will tell. They are coming tomorrow to collect everything, including the computer. If if it's still working when they deliver it in Auckland in 3-4 months I'll let you all know.

Best of Luck whoever you go with

Rebecca xxx

eric_amanda · Posted: Sat Apr 17, 2004 12:01 am Post subject: Shipping

Hi

Has anybody heard of/used Crown Relocations? What are your views etc?

Can anybody give us an indication on how much we should expect to have to pay for door to door on approx 500 cuft?

Thanks

Amanda & Eric

karltsmith · Posted: Sat Apr 17, 2004 9:02 pm Post subject:

Hi Eric/Amanda,

Yes we are using Crown Relocations! They are quiet small in the UK but big in NZ/Asia pacific. They are not the cheapest expect to pay 10% more than PSS. Our packing crew were very good, although we did have one minor mishap with our yew table that was easily resolved. Insurance is also more expensive via Crown but I think more comprehensive than most. I shall be posting a report on Crowns service sometime next week once we have recieved and inspected our shipment. If you have 500 Cu ft you may as well book a complete container or you may be able to use a sky van and airfreight it. A 20' container is 30m3 or 900cuft but once you go over about 12m3 (360 Cuft) you will find it costs just the same for a full container! This is because 'groupage shipments' will take longer to organise and your shipper will have to take all your stuff to a warehouse and combine it with others into a FCL. On arrrival it will need to be devanned (seperated into its various consignments) loaded into another van and then delivered. The more your goods are handled the more risk of damage of course. When insuring your goods remember also to insure the cost of shipping. Containers are lost at sea and if you don't insure for the cost of shipment you will lose this money if the worst happens! If you are considering airfreight as an alternative Air New Zealand (for one) offers a 50% discount on its airfreight charges if you ave booked a ticket with them! Might be worth checking out!!! cool

eric_amanda · Posted: Thu Apr 29, 2004 1:56 am Post subject:

Hi Karl

We were wondering if your shipment has arrived yet and if so what your final report is on Crown. They are currently the front runners for us. There quote is suprisingly cheaper than we expected to pay including all the furniture we were prepared to sell and replace in NZ. Our other quotation was through Excess Baggage and like you say Crown is slighltly more expensive on insurance, but excess baggage was still coming in £200/300 more on shipment. I guess it is as broad as long, however Crown do seem much more professional and at least it is still Crown in NZ.

Amanda & Eric

karltsmith · Posted: Thu Apr 29, 2004 1:56 pm Post subject: Crown Relocations

Hi Eric/Amanda

You pre-emted my posting today!

Our shipment was slighlty delayed because Crown did not have enough trucks/manpower to deliver when our shipment cleared the port!

This can happen and is not meant as a critisim!

Our shipment was a full container of 139 packages which we have put into personal storage ahead of buying a house because currently we are renting a fully furnished property.

My opinion on th whole is very good! One minor mishap during packing in the UK with our table but easily remedied!

I have inspected about 30 boxes containing all our fragile/high value items an have not found a single breakage.

A good bunch of guys in the UK made it quite good fun which helps!

NZ end seemed very polite friendly and helpful!

Admin of the import was smooth as silk with our shipment clearing customs and quarantine before the ship docked...largely due to me jet washing and disinfecting all items likely to cause a problem. MAF phoned me to quiz me on how clean everything was and once I told the officer he just cleared it without inspection!

Customs...nothing to declare so cleared.

Only minot problem at this end was the Crown liason officer handling the import who could'nt remeber me even though we had met only a few days before to lodge clearance docs. She opened two files on us, one in my wifes name and one in my name and it took her a while to realise we it was one and the same job....Hmmm... having the same address and surmname is a bit of a giveaway wouldn't you think!

Anyway I would recommend them...I don't think you'll get much better.

One tip though..If you are outting things into storage make sure you keep your own inventory of what goes into each box or arrange things so that the items you need access to immediately are all in the same set of boxes. It saves openeing 20 boxes to remove half a dozen items!!

Good luck...our stuff tookjust 4 weeks to get here 5 if you include the slight delay! cool

eric_amanda · Posted: Thu Apr 29, 2004 9:14 pm Post subject:

Hi Karl

Glad to hear things have gone reasonably smoothly, there is nothing worse than having major hassle when moving, particularly overseas. It looks as if we will be using Crown.

How did you manage to have things shipped so quickly? We have been quoted 8-12 weeks which is for a shared container which obviously takes slightly longer, however the ship should take 6-8 weeks shouldn't it?!!

We are planning on sending things ahead approx 6 weeks before we leave the UK, then after 4 weeks in motel (paid for by employer) we thought that would be about right for us to move into rented accomodation and our things to arrive?!?!

If the ship goes as fast as yours our things will arrive before us, maybe we should hold things back slightly just in case, we don't want to incur storage charges for too long.

Thanks for your help

Amanda & Eric

karltsmith · Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2004 1:43 am Post subject:

Hi Eric/Amanda,

Crown will store in the UK free for up to 60 Days. A groupage shipment will take longer to process and therfore arrive. Ours came more quickly than we expected and we were initially quoted 6-8 weeks by Crown but this changed at packing time to just one month! This included transhipping into another vessel and it came in exactly on schedule! Best bet for you guys may be to store in the UK until say 2/3 weeks before depature and then ship your stuff or rent a self storage unit. I'm guessing that if you are using groupage you don't have much to bring over? in that case a small self store unit would cost around NZ$175/month for a 3m X 3m unit failing that have you any friends with an empty garage or can your place of work arrange something?

Regards Karl Nice One

veronica · Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2004 8:55 am Post subject:

Hi, Are you going to chch or Auckland. its just that the ships go more frequently to Auckland than chch and for some reason they don't go direct either.
We are in the middle of filling a container ourselves to go to chch and have been told the journey time is approx 41 days, plus the boats only go every fortnight. This was a bit of a surprise to us as our daughter relocated to Auckland in Jan. this year and her stuff was packed on the 19th Jan and in their flat in NZ by the 20th Feb!

eric_amanda · Posted: Sun May 02, 2004 7:36 am Post subject:

Hi

We will be contacting Crown to get better idea of sailing dates etc, then make a more informed decision on when to pack up etc. there is no point uprooting children to early to move in with parents and then subsequently have to store things, we may aswell just pack up and move at the last minute (2-3 wks before departure) if shipping is likely to be quicker than originally estimated.

We will be shipping into Auckland also, as we are headed to Whangarei, Northland.

Thanks again

Amanda & Eric

martwend · Posted: Mon May 03, 2004 7:30 pm Post subject:

Hi

We packed up our stuff and it left the UK (Scottish Borders) about 4 weeks before we flew out. We rented a motel unit for 5 weeks and our stuff arrived aweek later. We opted to sell all furniture and electrical goods before we left Scotland and reckon that what we saved in shipping almost paid for all the nice new things we have bought here.

We brought 41 boxes of stuff with us and I think that was about £900 including insurance. We were told that our boxes could be put in storage in NZ by the local agents for a small fee but it didn't come to that. Our boxes were in fact about a week later than we expected but it wasn't a problem as furniture etc. had to be replaced anyway. We bought some very cheap bedlinen and crockery to tide us over for a week.

If you have antiques ....bring them!

Wendy Razz

Lauren · Posted: Mon May 03, 2004 9:21 pm Post subject: Shipping to Christchurch

Hi all,
Our container left Felixstowe on the 1st April and should be arriving in Christchurch on the 8th May (3 days later than originally planned). It should be delivered to our house on the 11th May (not long to wait after arrival). We are expecting to have the container inspected by MAF at our house that day which we have the pleasure of paying $320 for. It should only take 30 mins apparently.

Hope that helps
L.

martwend · Posted: Mon May 03, 2004 11:15 pm Post subject:

Hi,

Maf make the inspection sound really thorough and scary but a nice man just has a quick look at your boxes....ie about 60 seconds.....and in our case, scrubbed some grubby kids rugby boots, forgot to ask for his fee and left within 20 minutes. Didn't even stay long enough to offer him a cup of tea!

Wendy

abourmike · Posted: Sat May 22, 2004 4:36 am Post subject: Allied Pickfords

Has anyone had any dealings with Allied Pickfords?
They are just one of the companies we have had give us quotes, but despite them claiming to big both in the UK and New Zealand, I have heard very little about there International Shipping services.

Any thoughts?