If you are reading this because we have directed you here because you requested a shipping quote then please accept our apologies however after reading you will hopefully understand why we sent you here…..Please read the whole blog it starts all bad news but there is some good news towards the end.š
Covid.…. I am sorry to say had a serious affect on shipping and not in a good way….
Cratesā¦ā¦This is at the insistence of your government and is something we can do nothing about, it is what it is and if we fail to comply they just quarantine your shipment and charge you $20.00 a day till such times as they have time to deal with itā¦ crates are required by the USA, Canada and Australia they are a heat treated against infection, fumigated and sealed, they have to be stamped in accordance with regulationĀ ISPM-15Ā So not only is it an expense as they are quite expensive to buy they add weight to your goods which then in turn cost more to sendĀ ā¦.
There are several ways to ship to you
Air Freight……in most cases since the world started changing so dramatically this is just too expensive and can double the price you have paid for your furniture in some cases even more that double…
Sea Freight…this is many fold, we can ship to you kerb side that includes all the customs brokerage etc, they will contact you for some personal details when the shipment lands your end but other than that it is all done for you and dropped at your kerb. This is what most folks choose!
Sea Freight….To a business address, I don’t know why but if you have a business it makes it a good bit less expensive so for those lucky enough to have such an address you’ll save some dollars.
Sea Freight….Dropped at port, this means just that once it gets to the docks you can employ a brokering agent your end and they negotiate it on from there, this can again save a few dollars …
Agent.…so some good news of a fashion, we use an agent for shipping and air freight, we don’t add anything to the price and both air freight and sea freight are door to door, or as they say kerb side, we try very hard to make the import as seamless as is possible so all your quotes include customs brokerage meaning when your item lands at port the customs brokerage act on your behalf once they have contacted you to assist clearing customs and importation, this saves you many headaches and is included in the price. Because we use an agent the price you get will be the best available price at that time.
Your Country Agent….this is exactly what it says, if you are experienced importing then feel free to do it in reverse, have it collected from us and shipped to you via your own agent, we have zero problem with that and will provide all the details you need, …
Cubic Capacity…..The last little bit of bad news then on to better news, so if you are shipping one piece of furniture it can cost more that to ship several pieces, the reason is a cubic capacity charge, so just as an example if you were to buy a chair it might cost you Ā£400.00 to ship but if you bought three chairs then the cost to ship all three might be Ā£600.00 for the three, they would go in three different boxes it is because if you are under a certain cubic capacity then you pay a charge this charge is negated if you are over the minimum….this applies to Sea Freight and so in these circumstances Air Freight may be the better option for you.
V.A.T.……ok some good news, very good news, over here in the UK, VAT is included in all our prices, it stands for Value Added Tax and year on year the rate can vary depending on the government currently in power at this very moment in time the rate is 20% so if you live outside the UK when you check out the VAT is automatically removed from your bill and this saving can and often does go a long way towards your crate and shipping costs.
Staying with Crates for a little while we have for those that do multiple orders become very adept at packing and so where we can get two or three pieces in one crate which saves much money as the crate adds to the weight as well as the cost of the crate also, we get things down as low as we can…..
Apologies on such a long winded answer, but you do now at least understand the complexity of it and why I give you an estimate rather than a quote……also it saves me having to write the above over and over and over again, we get a lot of requests in a month š š¤£ š
Thanks for reading………………..Anthony