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Shipping Costs Help


KatieLou

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Hi, I just looking for a bit of advice,

 

We are hoping to move to Australia around June 2015 and have started looking at shipping costs. I have contacted a couple of companies for quotes and they have come back with big differences in price. We had one at £1300 for a full 20ft container and then another at £2700 for exactly the same thing. I don't want to just jump into the cheaper one as it seems a bit to good to be true, can anyone tell me from experience what they have paid for a 20ft container door to port?

 

Thanks

Katie

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Hi, I paid for a shared container, at £2450. I had quotes ranging up to £3500 but went with a recommended company my friend had used. I then paid a couple of hundred for insurance covering about £13000 and we will have a couple of hundred to pay customs here, maybe more if they need to treat any of our furniture (we have some antique wooden pieces).

I therefore budgeted £3000 for the whole thing door to door. I think we used about 550 cubic feet.

does the £1300 cover all the packing and them delivering to your door in perth? I was quoted a similar price but would have had to pack and load everything myself and then you can struggle to get insurance to cover you I believe.

 

good luck with everything.

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Hi Raychelsb,

 

Thank you for your reply. My partner did the quote and as far as I'm aware it was done as door to port. He is currently working in Australia for a freight company so was hoping he would be able to collect himself from the port in Freo and store the container on the works yard as we will be living with family until we are able to get our own place.

 

All the packing would of been done by myself so maybe that's where the price differnce comes from. Can i ask what you roughly packed up into 550 cubic feet? We have a small 2 bed house to pack up and ship.

 

Katie

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Hi Katie, we used a local company from Rotherham near Sheffield and we packed a super kingside bed and frame, king size bed and frame, large sofa and two chairs, dining table and four chairs, washer, fridge, freezer, two chests of drawers,sideboard and quite a lot of boxes of husbands tools, crockery, kitchenware, books, CDs, DVDs , ornaments, lamps etc. we too had a two bed house.

we used insure your Move for the insurance and got a cheaper quote than the shipping company

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Our recent experience has told us to check the small print. The cost of the container was reasonable to us but the insurance, which none of the sales folk or the 'move manager' ever talked to us about was astronomical: 2.8% so our stuff we valued at £50k and was quoted £1500 for insurance. I think this is an absolute rip off. The move is being undertaken by international specialists so they should know what they are doing, using a very safe form of transport in a very regulated industry and still want to charge 2.8%? Think of motor insurance where the company may have to pay out million plus pay outs and the likelihood is higher...it stinks of day light robbery to me. Regrettably the furniture etc gets collected next week from the UK and I am now in oz so there is little I can do except write here to vent my spleen....not sure if we are aloud to name the firm so I won't, however they do advertise Heavily at the immigration events and have less than four initials and more than two as part of their name; if we turn into ping pong poms (and I don't think we will) I would rather row my stuff back to the UK than uses them again.

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We used a local company to us in Truro when we moved. Booked them in and had the house packed up and then they insisted we use their insurance rather than shop around for a better deal. When I told them I wouldnt they insisted that any insurance company we used waived any rights to recoup any damages from them. Nobody would do so so instead i insured our stuff with the moving company for $100 and took out proper insurance with Insure Your Move. Luckily so in fact, the packers instead of dismantling a couple of beds ripped them apart and we had a claim for approx $1000.00 to repair/replace. I reported the moving companies practices to the British Association of Removers but nothing was ever done despite repeated follow ups. I can only hope insure your move went after the company to recover the insurance payout.

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  • 4 months later...
  • 2 weeks later...
We settled on using Groupage instead of a full 20ft and managed to get that for around £3k + insurance. The house is being packed up on the 2nd May. All seems real now!

 

 

Hiya @KatieLou and @Raychelsb, can I just ask, you both mention that you have/had two bed roomed houses, did you pretty much take the lot, or was it just the main bits of furniture.

We are thinking of pretty much taking everything, bar the odd bit of junk ( after having a really good clear out of course, parden the pun!) Wondering if we can fit it all in half a 20ft container?

 

Any extra info welcome xxx

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Hi LoopyLauren,

 

We are taking pretty much everything. I'm trying to have a good sort through and get rid of stuff we dont use/ need.

 

Originally we had 638 cft but removed the wardrobes from the main bedroom as they are very big so we went down to around 590 cft.

 

Hope this helps

 

Katie x

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Hi looplauren,

we packed about 620cubic foot I think and took all our furniture yes, plus lots of boxes of things such as ornaments, crockery, plus pictures. We have some large furniture too, a super kingsize bed with a big bedframe with that, plus a king size, our sofa suite too is large. Also too all white goods. They pack things very well, so can fit a lot into a small space.

 

raychel xx

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Hi Jason

i used Britannia removals in Rotherham South yorkshire. I too got quotes from the most well know companies like PSS, crown...and they were quoting well over 3000 too. Do you have a local company you could try if you haven't already?

 

Raychel

 

who did you use? it sound like we have less than you yet the cheapist sole use for us is £3800 without insurance, maybe its the typical charge the southerners more tricks

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Thanks Raychel, i have contacted Britannia anyway, although we have a 3 bed house we dont have alot of stuff as the OH likes minimalist and all our kitchen is built in so only a tumble dryer and we are going to purchase a washing machine after seeing the cost of them in Australia. We are not that fussed on sole use so will see what they say when they come out.

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Hi JasonM,

 

I haven't used them personally but my Auntie who lives in Aus used them to ship some items she'd bought in the UK and she was very impressed with them. Said she couldn't fault them for service and her items arrived earlier than expected.

 

KatieLou

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well what I was expecting to be be 2 days of packing turned into the house being packed up within 5 hours and is on its way to storage before being shipped. Couldn't fault the guys who came to pack, didn't waste any time just got on with it and were very helpful.

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Well the joke that I made about things costing more down south seems to be alive and well. Britania came out to quote and we are 620 mark however it will cost us £3800.00 to move. Just a bit different to your price for the same thing Rach. The joys of being ripped off.

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Well the joke that I made about things costing more down south seems to be alive and well. Britania came out to quote and we are 620 mark however it will cost us £3800.00 to move. Just a bit different to your price for the same thing Rach. The joys of being ripped off.

Hi Jason

is that for a shared container or sole use? If shared have you asked why it's so much?

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