Summary of removals quotes (Edinburgh to Melbourne)

[claramanda]

We've just had quotes from Clark & Rose (acting for John Masons), Doree Bonner and Crown to ship in May 2012. Here's a summary of the process so far:

 

We arranged all three to come on the same day and gave each the same schpeel about what we were looking for in terms of services and what we were planning on taking with us. We've got a 2-bedroom flat full of personal items and furniture. Most of our furniture can be dismantled with the exception of a tumble dryer, two 3-seater sofas, two double mattresses and we're planning on buying a king-size mattress to take as well. Our expectation was that we'd be looking at a shared container and our online inventory guesses always estimated around 600-650cuft.

 

Each agent came through and spent around 45 minutes with us, discussing our expectations, timescales and their services before going room-by-room to estimate the volume of our shipment. It took around 4 days for all the quotes to come back. They were each quite different in their approach.

 

Clark & Rose (aka John Masons) - Very friendly and professional service. The agent who visited us would be our single point of contact from door to door. Our goods would ship out of Liverpool to Melbourne in around 12-16 weeks and in Australia they hand service over to either Grace or Ridgeways to deal with customs clearance and delivery in Melbourne. The agent made a brief summary list of what we were planning on taking. Her quote doesn't provide an estimated volume. Instead she's quoted us £3,250 for up to 700cuft (shared container) or £3,825 for sole use of a 20-foot container. This does not include AQIS (anywhere from $250 to $450 AUD), port charges (where required) or insurance (quoted at 3% of value plus tax).

 

Doree Bonner - Quite an outgoing chap, but he turned up late and seemed keen on playing down the services offered by competing companies. Again, he would be the main point of contact from door to door. Our goods would go to their warehouse in Edinburgh and then ship from Dartford in 12-16 weeks (though he did offer to delay it 'in transit' at their facility Edinburgh to suit our timescales and save us on storage in Australia). Although they would also hand over to Grace in Australia, it is their sister company so they have integrated systems / communications / etc. He took more time than JM when looking at what we were planning on taking and quoted £2,769 for an estimated 580cuft. This does not include AQIS (anywhere from $250 to $450 AUD), port charges (where required) or insurance (quoted at 2.75% of value plus tax).

 

Crown - Really relaxed guy offering a straight-forward service. Crown has offices in the UK and Australia, so it would be the same company on both sides. I forgot to write down where they ship from, but it would take between 10-12 weeks and we can track our goods on their website. He left us with the names and bios of the agents we would be dealing with in Scotland and Melbourne as well as a lot of really useful info they've been putting together with inputs from customers and customs, etc. He took the most time compiling a detailed inventory list on his iPad, going room by room and checking to see what could be dismantled to save on space. Dismantling/assembly is included in their removals service. Based on this he quoted us £3381 for an estimated 674cuft, including $400AUD for AQIS. The quote doesn't include port charges (where required) or insurance (quoted at 2.8% of value plus tax for standard or 3% plus tax for premium).

 

It's worth noting these are all estimates to deliver within 50km / 30 miles of Melbourne and that each is subject to change as a result of freight increases in March.

 

We're going to have another look at what we're shipping and whether it would be more cost-effective to buy some things on arrival. All three companies have said we can revise the inventory as much as we want and they will revise their costs accordingly. At this point we're leaning toward Crown - biggest selling points for us are the fact that we'd only need to deal with a single company, can track our shipment online and they actually came out the cheapest per cuft. We were a bit surprised at the low estimated volume by Doree Bonner and kind of figure it's a tactic to come in as the lowest quote overall and then revise the volume later on which seemed a bit sneaky.

 

I've gotten a lot out of other people's experiences summarised on here, so thought I'd return the favour. Hope this helps someone else!

[Guest The Pom Queen]

thank you for your indepth post I'm sure this will be of interest to quite a few members

[purpledonna]

Hiya! We are also moving from Edinburgh to Melbourne. We had 6 companies come out to us and we have booked Crown for the 3rd March 2012. Good luck with your move.

[Quinkla]

I moved Edinburgh to Melbourne a couple of years ago. Crown were cheapest, John Masons in the middle and Pickfords were very expensive and persistent. Crown were the most thorough in evaluating what was being taken too. Their service was OK but some things (pictures, etc.) were damaged in the packing which was outsourced to a removalist. The removalists also left piles of stuff behind and I had to tell them to pack it all up when they thought they had finished. But still much better to get someone else to do the packing rather than worry about it yourself.

 

Best of luck.

[wanda&wayne]

Hi there, Great post. We have just started the pricing process. Only had PSS in at the moment, who have quoted us approx £6500/7000 for a 40ft container (without insurance, theres is 2/3% on value, but he did say just insure items over £500).

PSS do come in and do everything, said it would be 6/8 weeks. Also said they are a bit negotiable on price but would not move a lot on it..

Crown are coming in at the end of January and just gonna decided to get another one in, then we will decide.

We were a bit surprised at the first quote and really have to weigh up what furniture we could buy for that amount, although our soafs and just the dining table cost that we do have to ask the question whether this style of furniture will look ok in a Ozzie house......Just dont know what to do at the moment...

[Quinkla]

My advice would be to take everything you can - replacement here is way more expensive than shipping - except that there's no point in shipping things you will need immediately you arrive and have to replace anyway - e.g. mattresses.

[claramanda]

We were a bit surprised at the first quote and really have to weigh up what furniture we could buy for that amount, although our soafs and just the dining table cost that we do have to ask the question whether this style of furniture will look ok in a Ozzie house......Just dont know what to do at the moment...

 

We're having the same discussion. Thankfully we're not in a position where we'll likely need to replace things for immediate use so have decided to take whatever we can fit without going over the 20ft container mark. We did a like-for-like comparison of most of our furniture and it certainly came up much cheaper to ship than to replace, especially if you factor in the amount of time and hassle involved in re-furnishing an entire flat/house.

 

I have experience in moving countries before and will certainly welcome the familiarity having OUR stuff arrive - that, to me, is priceless to ease the settling in process! As a first test, we've just had to give away anything alive in our flat as we're both going to be working in the Middle East for the next few months - so the goldfish and the houseplants have all been adopted. The staged deconstruction of the home we've got here has underlined the importance of trying to retain as much of it as possible in this transition! Even if the furniture style doesn't immediately suit the new house - it will suit us just fine to start off with!