Advice on shipping to Australia

time2deal

Actually I had a quote from PSS just the other day. London to Sydney. Volume was 540sqm of stuff, which is about half a container. All contents of a fairly big 2 bed flat, 2xsofas, 2xdouble beds, baby stuff, kitchen stuff, etc etc. No appliances (like fridge, washing machine etc). And it came to £2.5k excluding insurance. Insurance is roughly £28 per £1000 of goods they told me, which you estimate yourself.

Takes 8-10 weeks and they fully pack and unpack for you, with 1 months storage at the other end included. They actually won't accept things they don't pack themselves for insurance reasons. I plan to do very little prep and just leave them to pack everything. From what I'm told it's a super quick operation, so you stand back and they sweep through the house!

I have had 2 friends who moved recently, but from rental flats where they didn't own the furniture. So excluding the furniture it was £1500 or so for the shipping.

If you are going back there is a forum called pomsinoz that has lots of info from people moving in both directions were you can get more relevant advice.

I'm from Sydney, and been here for 8 years, so I'm in a similar situation. We plan to go back early 2015.

time2deal

Oh, and everyone who used PSS had only good things to say. Only a few people, maybe 4, but no complaints and as they ship so much they ship almost every week. Be aware of this, as some places take a long time to fill and send the container - so it can be sitting in the UK for a few weeks before it even starts it's journey.

PSS also offer air freight (about £150 for 20kg) if you want a few extra things with you while you wait for the container to arrive.

AdrianC

time2deal wrote: »

Volume was 540sqm of stuff, which is about half a container. All contents of a fairly big 2 bed flat

I think you might want to double-check that volume... You could fit several flats into 540m3...

That'd be a pile of stuff 10m long by 9m wide by 6m high...

time2deal

AdrianC wrote: »

I think you might want to double-check that volume... You could fit several flats into 540m3...

That'd be a pile of stuff 10m long by 9m wide by 6m high...

Yes, good point. It says 'volume to be moved: 540'. Maybe it's sq foot. Anyway, its a 100sqm 2 bed flat, which is not very full of stuff. And lots of big items, like appliances, behind.

AdrianC

It'll be cubic feet - so almost exactly 50m3.

Which still sounds WAY OTT for a 100m2 flat. That'd be a 50cm/18" layer across the entire floor area of the flat...

BritAbroad

We had a 45-foot high-cube container, and it was full. That was for a 3-bed house. The guys were brilliant - it took 5 days to pack. The container arrived on the last day. We'd cleared out a lot too.

One thing to check is what happens at the other end. Because we had a corporate move, the company dictated what happened once the container was released by US customs. The storage and moving company they picked in the US were terrible - the only damage we had was from their actions as they delivered our stuff to our house. (Throwing a glass cabinet from one worker to another!) They didn't show up until almost lunchtime on the day they were due to deliver, then refused to fully unpack because it was too late in the day. Most of the crew were non-English speakers too and wouldn't communicate with us, and they ignored where we wanted things, even though we labelled each room (so ended up with a bed in the dining room, crockery in an upstairs bedroom, garden tools in a bathroom etc).

Darnknit

Thanks for that. I have seen there are fees charged to recieve goods into Aus as well. So def more research to be done. Might get a company to come around and quote so I have something to compare. Thanks everyone for your responses, I appreciate your taking the time