I want to send a (well packaged) guitar to someone in the UK. Easy eh. Well called a couple of courier types services and they are "business only" (+ amazed voice that I should even call them at all). Ok try Parcel Force. They have a nice table (xls) of cost/weight - easy. But as to the size - that's a completely different link and the parcel has to be X high(max) plus a "girth" (I kid you not) of X + girth x cube root of pi squared +1 (well ok I exag. a bit). Sooo, can someone please recommend a courier I can call/email to come and collect this guitar and from whom I can get a figure for max x,y,z. and the cost of shipping Thanks
You don't say where you are, so it becomes rather more difficult to make recommendations.
Let's assume that you are somewhere in the U.S. on the basis that it seems to be common to believe that that is the starting point.
I am in the UK and regularly arrange for shipments of all different sizes to and from the U.S. and other countries as well.
The first thing is to avoid ParcelForce. This is part of Royal Mail and has a public sector (lack of) service mentality. Particularly on intrnational shipments they are a nightmare to work with in terms of payments for customs clearances, any semblance of tracking and general delivery.
You don't say who you tried in terms of courier services. I regularly use Fedex, DHL, UPS to send items. I have accounts with all of them and the whole exercise is fairly painless. They do also have means for the occasional shipper to simply pay by credit card. If you did try these and they said "business only", it's possible that you spoke with the wrong department. Their main business is deliverig small packages and documents for business customers, but they certainly will handle larger items. For example, I once arranged a shipment to me of a workshop dust extraction system to me from the U.S. using Fedex. This was in 15 boxes and occupied two pallets. Shipment was by land and sea, not air, but Fedex offers a service to do this and the rates were good. So there is certainly not an issue with business/personal or with size. You may need to try a bit harder to find the appropriate department.
Another option is to use a freight forwarder firm. There are thousands of these and you should be able to find them easily in local Yellow Pages or that for your nearest major airport. Generally they are iterested in regular business, but it shouldn't be that hard to find one willing to do a one-off. However, they are not quite as seamless as Fedex,DHL, UPS etc. and tend to have more a la carte services. i.e. if you want collection at your end and the final leg delivery in the UK vs. depot to depot you have to specify that. I also use these types of organisation regularly, and one does have to be more specific about what exactly you want them to do. They tend also to be more "technical" using terms such as FOB, CIF, DDP and so on to describe the service. These are standard international freighting terms which define who pays for what and who is responsible for what in terms of shipping, taxes and insurance. The concepts are not that difficult, but it's more to inform oneself about. Freight forwarders tend to be very busy people and usually don't have the time to educate a one off shipper so might turn you away if they think that you are goig to use up a lot of their time on one shipment. They don't make that much margin as it's a very competitive industry.
The size related issue that you ran into was almost certainly Dimensional Weight. This is a standard international methodology (IATA etc.) when you have items where the size becomes more significant than the actual weight. For small items, it is almost always the actual weight that counts. For larger items, the Dimensional Weight or "dim" weight is used because the cost of space on an aircraft or ship may be more expensive than the physical weight factor. This would be unprofitable for bulky items, so dimensional weight is used for rate calculations.
The formula for international shipments is generally the three dimensions, measured in cm, multiplied together and then divided by
6000 to give a dim weight in kg. There is even a version using ancient means of measurement such as inches and pounds. For odd shapes like cylinders, the girth (circumference of an end) is used as one component. Increasingly, this formula, or one based on its principles, is being used for road shipments as well.
Here is an example of a calculator. Almost all the firms have one of these.
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let's say that your guitar is in a box of dimensions 150cm x 25cm x
50cm and has an actual weight of 7kgs. I made these numbers up, but they are probably in the right area. The dim weight for an international shipment will be 31.25kg, so the carrier will charge you on this basis, not for 7kg. Notice also from this page, that this size is comfortably within what Fedex will ship. Note that the rates are not necessarily linear with weight and dim weight, but the method of calculation is industry standard.
Obviously this tells you to pack the goods well, but not in a box that is massively larger than is needed.
The next factor to consider is shipment costs and taxes. For importation into the UK on a personal basis, duty and value added tax (VAT) are due on entry before Customs will clear the goods. For a musical instrument, duty appears to be about 3-4% depending on what it is. VAT is then calculated on the value after duty is applied to the item and the shipping cost is added and is currently 17.5%.
A courier firm will make that process easy. When you fill in the paperwork as shipper, you tick a box saying whether you will pay the charges or whether they will be billed to the recipient. Let's say you opt for the latter. If you use Fedex, DHL etc.; they will either invoice the recipient for the charges, or contact him by phone and take credit card details. Generally, they require a phone number before accepting a shipment. He will then normally receive the goods the following day. Moreover, you and he can track precisely where th shipment is on the web site. In this respect, ParcelForce/Royal Mail are in the dark ages. Typically they send a postcard to the recipient and he has to go to the post office to pay the charges and collect the goods - very hit and miss.
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will need to prepare a Commercial Invoice for the shipment - sometimes known as a Customs Invoice. This is simply a statement of the details of shipper and recipient, what the item is and a few other details. There are examples on the DHL and other web sites. For a personal shipment, it's simple. The invoice value is used for Customs purposes. Don't be tempted to undervalue the goods in an attempt to reduce the taxes for the recipient. Although a lot of Customs systems are now automated, they manage by exception and selection. Therefore if you try and declare a guitar to have a value of $50 they will look at it. Customs officers are not stupid, and may impose penalties on top of the normal charges.
Obviously a full service courier such as Fedex or DHL costs a little more than the postal type services such as ParcelFarce. However, they do provide a good service in general, and if they miss their committed delivery through their fault vs. a customs delay (which they don't control), they will refund the shipping cost without quibbling. Also, they are designed to be minimum hassle services and usually are. You will have to deal with dim weight and you will have to do the customs invoice. Then there is a shipping form to fill in (airwaybill) with basic address details for transport - can be done online. Following that, you call them to book a collection or do that on line and that's it.
If you are looking to buy on price, then USPS+ParcelFarce may be a little less expensive, but tracking doesn't really work, there is no real delivery time and the recipient is likely to have hassle. You still have to do the paperwork. I refuse to use them as a result.
A freightforwarder may be interesting. However, if it's a one off, probably not worth the learing curve.
I've used parcel2go, who act as a broker for several couriers, for parcels within the UK.
It's not quite as simple as specifying maximum x, y, and z, because there are maximum volumes as well as maximum individual dimensions, but there's a fairly simple process for entering the dimensions if working out the volume yourself seems too tricky.
The service I've had from DHL, through parcel2go, has been excellent. I recently booked a collection of a box at 9 a.m., it was collected before noon, and delivered the next morning - all for £7.04 for 10kg. I've no doubt others will have horror stories of any parcel firm you care to mention.
Parcelforce seem to have turned their back on non-contract service - Royal Mail standard parcels seems to be a better bet for non-urgent delivery, though their coarse pricing structure can mean first class post can be only pence dearer for some weights.
It also tells you to use stronger packaging, because the extra weight won't increase the shipping cost.
Stringed instruments are not easy to ship safely - and believe me, you don't want to get into the nightmare of a damaged and rejected international package. Even with insurance, it will eat up months of your life; and at the end of it all, you (not your customer) will have a damaged guitar on your hands.
If you don't already know how to package a guitar for bomb-proof shipping, PLEASE find somebody who does know! Some of the special things you need to do are not at all obvious, so don't listen to theorists - look for someone with practical experience over several successful shipments, and then do exactly what they say.
Indeed. Words for the wise. I am in the middle of processing a claim with USPS+Royal Mail and after 6 weeks of to-ing and fro-ing am about to write it off.
Another point on packaging is to make sure that the package can be opened without compromising it and being able to reseal it. There is a high probability that it would be opened by security people before air shipment and it needs to be able to be easily done up again.
Thanks for all the detailed info - (even the off-key bits). Really appreciated. Apart from anything else this is a decent instrument so would hate to see it damaged in shipping. I *will* check on packaging properly.
I have sent two guitars via Parcel Force and never had any problem - it was a while ago but I think the cost was about £14 for a 12 string acoustic packed in a cardboard guitar box.
A few days ago, our most reliable carrier commented that it was nice to deal with someone who always provided telephone numbers, because so many of their customers do not.
I was really talking about the international firms such as Fedex, DHL, UPS etc.
Even so, a phone number doesn't guarantee the behaviour of the firm.
Two examples.
At the weekend, I ordered some Land Rover spare parts (small things that I would want to do like replacing the clock and wiper arms - I'm not interested in getting my hands dirty on cars).
These were shipped by Citylink from somewhere north of Watford. There was a very quick knock on the front door on Wednesday morning and I was at the door in about 30 seconds. The postcard was already on the mat and the guy was part way down the drive. He didn't have the package in his hand.
He claimed that he had rung the doorbell and called on the phone (number was on the waybill). He had done neither - the doorbell hooks into a home automation system which logs presses and the phone is via a PABX which logs all incoming calls. In short, he was bearing false witness.
So we went to his van at the end of the drive and collected the parcel. I took it back to the house before I would sign his paper work.
The back of his van was a jumble of packages all over the place, obviously not organised. Clearly he was playing the game of just putting cards through the door, knock once and run away. It saves him a bit of time and I suppose that some number of people would go to the depot to collect their item. Needless to say, a complaint has gone to the supplier and to the local Citylink depot.
It's a different matter when there's a service guarantee and there is a fair cost involved.
Also earlier this week, I was expecting to receive a package from the U.S. shipped a week ago, Wednesday by DHL. The normal arrangement is that the shipping part is paid by the sender and import taxes billed to my account so that I can recover the VAT. Normally the package would have arrived on Friday, or Monday latest. For some reason, and was the first time it had happened, the account number had not been transferred and customs clearance didn't happen in time for the weekend. DHL called me because of the exception in the tracking, although I had already spotted it, They apologised and asked what time I would like it delivered on Tuesday because that was the earliest now possible. I was leaving early to go to a meeting, so needed the package by 0700 but not some ridiculously early time. They arranged a special delivery and the package was here at 0650.
I then received a follow up phone call later in the day to apologise again, to explain what had gone wrong and to confirm a refund of the entire shipping cost, some $100.
Good service is about getting things right almost 100% of the time. Excellent service is what you do on the small number of occasions remaining when something goes wrong.
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