Shipping Goods To Bangkok

[Bmouthboyo]

Hey guys,

my partner and I will be moving to Bangkok having secured a job there. The package includes a generous £1500 settling allowance that we can use to as we wish, shipping items and basic furnishing. The package includes accommodation so we shouldn't need to buy beds, desks etc, I think its more pots,pans,covers and Home Entertainment...

My question is really what should I realistically ship over, how much I would be looking at cost wise and any general advice. Ideally I would like to bring my Plasma (46inch), PS3, Xbox, Games, iMac and some general household bits and bobs. Would a large TV be OK to ship if I box it etc? Or is that a bit silly?

Thanks guys

[Mrjlh]

Electricity here is 220V/50hz. So leave behind anything not capable of handling 220V. Everything you mentioned can be bought here. Most housing which claims to be "furnished"will have a TV. Waste of money shipping one. Bring newer electronics like phone, camera, I-pad and such. Thais are 3 to 6 months behind in electronic gadgets. Pack lightly and spend the money as you need it. Less hassle all the way around. Just my advice.

[Bmouthboyo]

UK is 240v so would that be ok sticking it to thai mains with plug adapter etc? I understand that buying local might be good for some things but my thinking is this: my TV would cost about £700 new, but if i sold mine here before I leave I would probably only get £250 to £300. Also I should have mentioned that after the first year we will need to find our own accommodation that the company pay for. They allow about 35000 tbh a month for this so from what I can gather should be OK quality and hopefully furnished, yet I imagine would not have a TV etc.

Does anyone have any experience shipping a TV from Blighty to Bangkok? Are there common things people ship due to lack of local availability or high costs?

[FunFon]

Are there common things people ship due to lack of local availability or high costs?

-

IMO a TV would be silly, along with any other large or heavy domestic appliances.

Think of non-perishable pommie foods you enjoy, high-quality shoes and clothing that may be cheaper there, certainly books would be at the top of my list. Maybe look at the "is anything cheap in Thailand anymore" thread for ideas. . .

And of course ask your friends here what they'd like you to ship over for them - I'll put in a request for plain logs of marzipan please. . .

[meatboy]

there is enough info on the subject some good but mostly bad,my two penneth for what its worth dont even think about it if you dont like being ripped off,if they dredged the bottom of the docks there is more than enough to fill thousands of containers,so thats where it goes after you tell them[agents-customs] to stick it up your jacksy.

[Bmouthboyo]

there is enough info on the subject some good but mostly bad,my two penneth for what its worth dont even think about it if you dont like being ripped off,if they dredged the bottom of the docks there is more than enough to fill thousands of containers,so thats where it goes after you tell them[agents-customs] to stick it up your jacksy.

Ah that's rather worrying, rip you off in what way? The thai customs charge you for your own goods? What do they charge you? Would it not be wise to even bring my imac, consoles, etc?

[FunFon]

Ah that's rather worrying, rip you off in what way? The thai customs charge you for your own goods? What do they charge you? Would it not be wise to even bring my imac, consoles, etc?

-

Anything you bring in with you on your flight is likely to get through OK.

Second-best is plain old sea Royal Post.

Via shipping service duties are often a ripoff but can usually be negotiated.

DHL/UPS are usually completely unreasonable, FedEx is the worst.

[Bmouthboyo]

I was considering voovit as they seem to handle the process from door to port. Any had experience with them?

[kurnell]

You won't be able to ship much for £1500, possibly 2-3 cubic metres. Wth a work permit, there will be no tax and duty. You have to declare any items as used though.

[meatboy]

there is enough info on the subject some good but mostly bad,my two penneth for what its worth dont even think about it if you dont like being ripped off,if they dredged the bottom of the docks there is more than enough to fill thousands of containers,so thats where it goes after you tell them[agents-customs] to stick it up your jacksy.

Ah that's rather worrying, rip you off in what way? The thai customs charge you for your own goods? What do they charge you? Would it not be wise to even bring my imac, consoles, etc?

only our experiance wf.spent 20yrs.in the uk.and had collected some nice household goods ect.which we knew would be exspensive here so as it was her personel belongings no electric items,30boxes in total =3cubic mtrs. but once they arrived in bkk.and she had to give them [agents] a copy of her passport farang surname then the fun started.try and find other stories in this forum,you might be one of the lucky ones but you have more chance to win the lottery.and dont forget you have to itemize every single thing [paper work] so they know whats in the boxes,otherwise they might open them,might no,will.

[heatherm]

Don't even think about shipping a TV. If it arrives at all, the chances of it being broken are pretty high. Get here and find out what TV your condo already has. I've stayed some places with fairly good sized sets. If it is a decent size, suck it up for a year and get a monster set for your new place. Also, the converter thing to change the electric has a little fan and is loud.

Bring your game systems and any games.

Don't bring your DVD player, it won't play the DVDs here. Bring excessive amounts of underwear if your fanny isn't Thai sized. Don't bother packing more than two pairs of socks. Don't bring a lot of shoes, just the high quality nice ones. Cheap ones here are very cheap. Bring a flat sheet for you bed, they are hard to find here. If you have a memory foam topper for your mattress, bring it. It will fit in a large suitcase with your XBox in the middle. Pay to check an extra suitcase and the overweight fees. It's cheaper than shipping and you know it will arrive. I moved all of my important stuff here in luggage.

Sent from my GT-P1010 using Thaivisa Connect App

[FunFon]

You won't be able to ship much for £1500, possibly 2-3 cubic metres. Wth a work permit, there will be no tax and duty. You have to declare any items as used though.

-

And bring receipts if at all possible.

Don't most new employees come over on the non-imm B and a letter of intent, and then the actual WP doesn't get issued until a month or two later?

Which would imply for those with significant value stuff they should arrange for the shipment to be delayed until they get their WP in hand?

[PaullyW]

I've tried FedEx (bad experience - rip-off on taxes), DHL (worst experience - rip-off on taxes), Thai Post (not bad - usually not taxed aggressively), and, most recently TNT (surprisingly very good experience - only minor, reasonable taxes)

You can contact them and ask how much they will charge you for the shipment.

Good luck

T : 66 2 257 6464
F : 66 2 134 6005

TNT Express Worldwide (Thailand) Co., Ltd.
Suvarnabhumi International Airport, Customs Free Zone, T 201, WFS-PG Cargo Terminal, 999 Moo 7, Rachethewa, Bangphli, Samutprakarn 10540
Thailand’s Standard Official Hours : Mon-Fri 8:00 AM-17:00 PM (GMT+7)
THAILAND
www.tnt.com

[apetley]

Seven Seas do door to door shipping for a very reasonable price. My cousin shipped about 8 good size boxes and a couple of bicycles and didn't even have to pay any import tax.

If you can ship in a Thais name things can be even smoother.

[rwdrwdrwd]

You won't be able to ship much for £1500, possibly 2-3 cubic metres. Wth a work permit, there will be no tax and duty. You have to declare any items as used though.

We just shipped 6 cubic metres for £1400, door to door packed in the UK and unpacked for us 400km South of Bangkok. It wasn't the cheapest quote offered either.. we evaluated three, they were all in the 1100 - 1500 but the one we chose was the most responsive company. This included full insurance. We did let them all know very clearly that we were getting multiple quotes.

Our shipment wasn't taxed since my wife (who kept her thai surname) was the shipper and classed as a returning Thai, however we did get a £300 'scan fee'. They didn't open anything, we were told this was because there was 'lots of things' - hah. I'm not sure if the OPs visa would trigger tax or not, I know some non-Imm visas are exempt but not sure if this is perhaps only year long ones. Personally I anticipated a 10 - 30% surcharge in one form or another which turned out pretty accurate.

For us, our shipment was lots of kitchen electronics (coffee machine, grinder, bread machine, slow cooker, blender, juicer). Quite a few expensive household electronics (yes including a TV), all sorts of stuff for a new baby, quite a bit of furniture, lots of books, documents, clothes. Full home office set. Probably about 3 - 5 grands worth of stuff. Everything was packed individually with great care, the sole breakage we had was to a fragile lampshade.

With patience all of this stuff could be located here, but at a premium on UK prices. We could have put everything into storage or sold everything, but the former is an ongoing expense (and not a cheap one), and the latter would have taken up an awful lot of time and hassle to offload things we liked at below market rate only to have to then find the same (or research suitable quality replacements, then find them) and buy them again at inflated prices here.

We don't regret shipping at all, it saved no end of hassle

The company we used was Dynamic International - they were great, the Thai end was subcontracted by them to United Relocations (Thailand) Co. Ltd, also a satisfactory service.

Edited March 31, 2013 by rwdrwdrwd

[Bmouthboyo]

You won't be able to ship much for £1500, possibly 2-3 cubic metres. Wth a work permit, there will be no tax and duty. You have to declare any items as used though.

-And bring receipts if at all possible.Don't most new employees come over on the non-imm B and a letter of intent, and then the actual WP doesn't get issued until a month or two later?Which would imply for those with significant value stuff they should arrange for the shipment to be delayed until they get their WP in hand?

If I have the WP in hand would I be able to avoid the thai charges? I am not entirely sure what my employer is doing regarding visa's but they asked for mine and my partners passport scans a few weeks ago for them and we don't move out until August.

Also another annoying thing is that I did not get a receipt for my iMac as I bought it second hand in eBay, will that be an issue? would I be able to get it through in hand luggage? Or is that silly with a computer, albeit boxed etc?

[FunFon]

You won't be able to ship much for £1500, possibly 2-3 cubic metres. Wth a work permit, there will be no tax and duty. You have to declare any items as used though.

-And bring receipts if at all possible.Don't most new employees come over on the non-imm B and a letter of intent, and then the actual WP doesn't get issued until a month or two later?Which would imply for those with significant value stuff they should arrange for the shipment to be delayed until they get their WP in hand?

If I have the WP in hand would I be able to avoid the thai charges? I am not entirely sure what my employer is doing regarding visa's but they asked for mine and my partners passport scans a few weeks ago for them and we don't move out until August.

Also another annoying thing is that I did not get a receipt for my iMac as I bought it second hand in eBay, will that be an issue? would I be able to get it through in hand luggage? Or is that silly with a computer, albeit boxed etc?

-

I would be very surprised to hear of anyone having a WP in hand before their first arrival, and not surprised at all if it turned out to be impossible.

A printout of the eBay transaction may be enough. Keep in mind everything here is simply ammunition to help with the negotiating process, it's completely arbitrary depending on what side of the bed a given official woke up this morning, more like bargaining in a street market than any kind of rule-based process.

Note the previous poster considered himself lucky he was assessed "only" 300 UK pounds for a "scan fee", didn't have to pay any duty - different people have different situations of course.

ANYTHING at all you manage to bring in with you when you fly is very likely to slip through customs without any issue at all, the average is probably well under one out of a thousand arrivals even speaks to a customs official - I never have in 14 years living here - especially if you're white and coming from a developed country.

Seriously consider other than what you can carry in or send by slow postal service, selling off your stuff by eBay other than sentimental value, buying what you need here.

Edited March 31, 2013 by FunFon

[MikeENZ]

TVs are ridiculously cheap here. Sell at home and buy here.

Clothes, Computers, Small Electronics and Hobby/Niche products are all you need. Oh and food from home!

[FunFon]

Clothes, Computers, Small Electronics and Hobby/Niche products are all you need. Oh and food from home!

-

Portable computers maybe, I'm having a bit of trouble figuring out what to do with my large and very heavy tower with 16 x 2-TB drives in pretty fragile RAID arrays, can't exactly sync it up via Dropbox or GoogleDrive. . .

[kurnell]

You won't be able to ship much for £1500, possibly 2-3 cubic metres. Wth a work permit, there will be no tax and duty. You have to declare any items as used though.

-

And bring receipts if at all possible.

Don't most new employees come over on the non-imm B and a letter of intent, and then the actual WP doesn't get issued until a month or two later?

Which would imply for those with significant value stuff they should arrange for the shipment to be delayed until they get their WP in hand?

You need a work permit when the shipment arrives at port, or a Thai spouse, who has lived in the country of origin for min 12 months.

The shipment rwdrwdrwd is talking about is a groupage shipment handled by a freight company, which is ok.

[Bmouthboyo]

OK so I pretty much think the TV is out, probably store it at the in laws garage with my surround sound etc for the future when we may return.

Realistically we are only looking to ship about 4 30Kg box's with various sentimental bits and bobs, games console and cables etc, bread maker, few bits of nice crockery, and if it was viable the TV and Surround Sound. The company I am starting with employs mainly British Ex-pats and seem to be taking care of most things so hopefully as the start date gets nearer will offer advice on shipping etc, especially as they allow so much of an allowance for it and ask for receipts.

Stressful times already!

[FunFon]

Some companies will pay the relocation allowance as a straight cash signing bonus "in lieu" if you let them know it's easier for you to just buy replacement stuff here. Doesn't hurt to ask when the time comes. . .

[Dancealot]

To the OP, Congratulations on securing a job here.

I work in the shipping business and i advice you only to bring clothes books and personal items. Do not bring any furniture.

If you are attached to your precious TV, bring it by all means. There are easy solutions to power it up. Also bring anything your wife wants to take(to avoid unnessecary discussions ). Just be more firmly about the furniture.

In the UK we work with Allied and Pickfords and Pearsons(UTS). Door to door. Call them to give you an estimate.

Good luck.

[meatboy]

You won't be able to ship much for £1500, possibly 2-3 cubic metres. Wth a work permit, there will be no tax and duty. You have to declare any items as used though.

We just shipped 6 cubic metres for £1400, door to door packed in the UK and unpacked for us 400km South of Bangkok. It wasn't the cheapest quote offered either.. we evaluated three, they were all in the 1100 - 1500 but the one we chose was the most responsive company. This included full insurance. We did let them all know very clearly that we were getting multiple quotes.

Our shipment wasn't taxed since my wife (who kept her thai surname) was the shipper and classed as a returning Thai, however we did get a £300 'scan fee'. They didn't open anything, we were told this was because there was 'lots of things' - hah. I'm not sure if the OPs visa would trigger tax or not, I know some non-Imm visas are exempt but not sure if this is perhaps only year long ones. Personally I anticipated a 10 - 30% surcharge in one form or another which turned out pretty accurate.

For us, our shipment was lots of kitchen electronics (coffee machine, grinder, bread machine, slow cooker, blender, juicer). Quite a few expensive household electronics (yes including a TV), all sorts of stuff for a new baby, quite a bit of furniture, lots of books, documents, clothes. Full home office set. Probably about 3 - 5 grands worth of stuff. Everything was packed individually with great care, the sole breakage we had was to a fragile lampshade.

With patience all of this stuff could be located here, but at a premium on UK prices. We could have put everything into storage or sold everything, but the former is an ongoing expense (and not a cheap one), and the latter would have taken up an awful lot of time and hassle to offload things we liked at below market rate only to have to then find the same (or research suitable quality replacements, then find them) and buy them again at inflated prices here.

We don't regret shipping at all, it saved no end of hassle

The company we used was Dynamic International - they were great, the Thai end was subcontracted by them to United Relocations (Thailand) Co. Ltd, also a satisfactory service.

going on what you paid it looks like we got off lightly,£240 to ship 3cubic mtrs.from the uk.12,000bht for so called agents handling fee bkk.and 6,000bht.delivery 250kilo.it was the way the agent tried it on with my mrs.paper work was supplied for each item and what box they were in,she[agent ]started asking how big was this and how big was towells but after 3 days of agrivation the final straw came when she asked how big and what size were some pictures then the mrs cracked she turned on the agent and told her her brothers were going to make a visit if the goods were not sent,then came the scam,the agent said we are not licenced to enter the customs area so we have to use another co.she asked for the name and got it checked out guess what same co.diff.name,one more phone call and it was delivered next day.as its been said we had a lot of good stainless steel kitchen equipment which we had already priced here so it was a no no to dump it in the dock which we were told in the uk.a lot of farangs had done.

[Bmouthboyo]

I am confused why would you dump it in the dock? Also if you have a work permit etc how do they get away with trying to charge you silly stuff like that? Is there a way to avoid this?

[Rinrada]

Got another 10 boxes @30Kgms going out soon with 7 seas ..been good up to now...will see and report back..incl. kitchen sink..MKjai

[Scottythai]

I am confused why would you dump it in the dock? Also if you have a work permit etc how do they get away with trying to charge you silly stuff like that? Is there a way to avoid this?

Something you will learn TIT. Its not just a phrase its a way of life

[meatboy]

I am confused why would you dump it in the dock? Also if you have a work permit etc how do they get away with trying to charge you silly stuff like that? Is there a way to avoid this?

first of all it was personel items my wf.owned in the uk.no work permit involved,but some have been so pissed off with the demands for cash and the aggravation that they have simply told them to dump them,i just wonder if they do.there are some interesting stories regarding this somewhere in the posts.

[FunFon]

I am confused why would you dump it in the dock? Also if you have a work permit etc how do they get away with trying to charge you silly stuff like that? Is there a way to avoid this?

-

I've outlined above in priority order the ways to bring stuff in most likely to avoid the problem.

Once your stuff actually comes to the attention of the customs, from then on it's just a lottery, and yes, very often they're asking so much relative to the value of the goods people just give up and say never mind keep it.

Sentimental-value stuff bring in the safer ways I outlined, and see if the employer will give you the cash to just buy here.

[Bmouthboyo]

OK thanks for the advice so far guys, please bare with me I am new to the international movement scene lol

So after some research I have come to the following options:

A) I take my iMac via checked luggage in its original box which has a shipping brown box around it also which hides what it is. This will leave me about 10Kg for other items I need to bring but iMac may get damaged.

Buy a iMac travel case which weighs near 9Kg and literally only have my hand luggage left to emigrate, not ideal.

C) Ship iMac along with other items we want (about 4 - 5 box's full) via door to door freight.

Option C is seeming like our preferred as we can not be so savage with selecting what to bring and do not have as much risk damaging valuable electronics like my iMac compared to checking it in as baggage. I have had a quite from seven seas which seemed reasonable:

My only worry is this mentioned Thai scanning / tea room / mugging Tax. I will ensure that all items are over 6 months old, used, and meet all the Thai customs regulations in terms of quantity, working visa etc, but could I still be held to ransom with these mentioned tax's? Or is it less likely as I have used a door to door service? Or will they probably still ask for money when at my door delivering?

The reason I am worried is that there will be a lot of sentimental and valuable items which if held as a ransom I do not have the option of ditching. On the other hand I do not want to be bent over backwards.