Am 18 Oct 2005 8:41 meinte Chandra Bajpai:
I need to ship about 200 pounds of computers,
documentation and spares from
South Africa to Boston.
;)
Any suggestions on shipping this economically (and
safely). It seems FedEx
is quite expensive does not make economic sense for me..are there alternate
carriers or methods (e.g. via Ship) that make sense to Look at?
Well, FedEX (and DHL or UPS) are don't care shipers ... you
shoule never care about the price :)
If it would be about a larger shipment, I'd say go for one
of the real ship (ed. the things that float on water) companies.
I had quite good experience with TTC (
totaltrans.com). THey spend
quite some time to help a total beginner like me to get my stuff
arround the globe at quite good rates. I also tried to get quotes
from the bigger players (like Menlo - except, they
where the
incompetent and unresponsive I ever talked to).
Regarding the small amount of Computergear you have, what
about a trip to Boston with your Whife and maybe a friend?
70 pund free each (maybe more if you're some kind of elite
card holder) If you're lucky, you get a flight for arround
400 Euro per person ... still way below whe UPS & Co charge.
And a few days off...
How do I deal with customs?
Declartation is everything. The shipment company will require
detailed papers. It also helps quite a lot if you're present
at the deciveing customs office. Usualy, when I get stuff
from outside the EU, I make them to foreward it
'sealed' to
Munich, and handle customs myself. This is the perfect spot
to use you Geek-Powers: talk to the customs officer, explain
what it is, give him dreamy comments about all the technical
details. The result is a win-winn situation, you have fun
telling, and they somehow speed up the process quite much.
The last 6 palletes of stuff I got from california, I had
a tax payment of less than 20 USD :)
Now, if you take the stuff in your baggage, the checks in
the US are rather nominal. Even before TSA, did the US pay
the larges boarderservice I know with the least intense
checks I know.
Gruss
H.
--
VCF Europa 7.0 am 29/30.April und 01.Mai 2006 in Muenchen
http://www.vcfe.org/