I need to know about shipping companies RIGHT NOW.

[reddragdiva]

ozjester kindly took custody of my vinyl records when my parents moved out of Perth. Unfortunately, he has just moved too, into a house with one room less. So I have to get thirty-two crates of records from Perth to London very soon indeed.

What shipping companies have you used? Who was good? Who was disastrous?

Thank goodness surface shipping is priced by volume, not weight ...

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/raven_/]

I *think* I used Allied Pickfords, to go from Aberdeen to Aus... Do a web search?

[arkady.livejournal.com]

I've already warned him off Pickfords. I used to work for them and I know just how shoddy and crap they really are. They quite routinely "lose" containers off their ships, and they're very slapdash with their handling methods. Personally I would never touch Pickfords, Allied Pickfords or North American Van Lines (the parent company). They're an overpriced, clumsy bunch of shysters.

[http://users.livejournal.com/raven_/]

Heh. Oops.

Strangely enough, I've just booked them for my local domestic move. It's going on and off one truck - I'll keep my fingers crossed :-)

[(Anonymous)]

The 'overpriced' has been obvious for a while. (We briefly considered using them when we moved nearly four years ago, and then decided they were taking the piss.)

But the rest? Damn, there goes the idea that you get what you pay for.

[ladykathryn.livejournal.com]

Seconded. North American moved us once - they disassembled our furniture. Including the antiques we paid extra for "special handling" on. Agh!

[arkady.livejournal.com]

Have you thought of contacting some of the independant record shops? Find out who they use?

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nicolai_/]

Don't you have any contacts in the shipping biz who can arrange you an LTL shipment?
Otherwise check out companies who deal with overseas students; if you were in Cambridge I'd suggest an outfit called Anglia Freight Forwarding, but they're only in the Cambridge area. For any brand name you know well, you're paying a LOT for the brand name. Mind you, you could always see just how much FedEx want to do it, and see what happens.

[ladykathryn.livejournal.com]

Fedex ground freight can actually be quite reasonable.

[damned-colonial.livejournal.com]

Nuss Removals (Australia) were excellent for my Canada-to-Australia move. But you probably want to get a rec at your end; they all have partnerships worldwide, but it's the people near you you'll be dealing with on the phone and stuff.

I've never had any disastrous experiences. All the biggish companies seem to be priced around the same, too.

[rbarclay.livejournal.com]

Are you sure you really want those records in London? Because if you don't have enough space I'd guess paid storage in .au would be cheaper than in London, what with all the space down under.

[redcountess]

That was my thought as well, but D says he doesn't trust the local storage companies.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nicolai_/]

For storage on the UK end, if you need it, Big Yellow Self Storage did my cousin OK.

[rbarclay.livejournal.com]

http://www.google.at/search?hl=de&q=u-store+australia doesn't sound too bad. In .at, at least, those services are ok.

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

THIRTY TWO CRATES? Gosh.

[redcountess]

Ayup, and they were a bugger to organise moving just from Melbourne to Perth!

[bramsmits.livejournal.com]

For US-NL I found World Freight Logistics out of Rotterdam to be fairly clueful. www.wfl.nl. I guess they can also help out ith AU-UK through partners or recommend if they don't want to handle it themselves.

[bramsmits.livejournal.com]

By the way, surface shipping is by volume or weight - the standard unit is cubic meter or metric ton, whichever is the higher number. No idea how much 32 crates of records weigh. Still, it's the crating and handling that's the killer -- expect no more than a couple of tenners per cbm or ton, but throw on a flat couple of hundred for handling and paperwork.

[damerell.livejournal.com]

One tonne/m^3 is the density of water. I'm pretty sure a crateful of records weighs less than a crateful of water, so it'll be by volume. Ahem. This is all a bit Captain Obvious, really...

[the_axel]

This ma not be directly helpful but to get stuff from Cheltenham to Toronto & from Toronto to Israel I used tiny companies that I found in the Yellow Pages & operated out of a shoe box (or similar) with no problems at all.

I reccomend that you pay for insurance for the vinyl [1] & make sure that the records are waterproofed inside the boxes as well as outside.

[1] Ensure the insurer is reputable & pays out, e.g. not Endlsleigh.