Shipping Goods To Bangkok

[sms747]

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.

seven seas can be a nightmare to deal with- overpricing, lost boxes, poor customer service, the list is endless. I used them twice but never again. Some reviews:

http://www.ciao.co.uk/nf/Reviews/Sev...77/SortOrder/2

Edited April 3, 2013 by sms747

[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.

seven seas can be a nightmare to deal with- overpricing, lost boxes, poor customer service, the list is endless. I used them twice but never again. Some reviews:

http://www.ciao.co.uk/nf/Reviews/Sev...77/SortOrder/2

Link doesn't work for me.

Sorry about your own experience but it's at odds with my cousins.

He said they were very good from start to finish and the Thai girl in the UK who dealt with his shipment was very helpful with good advice. Cost was the cheapest of those he requested a quote from too.

[sms747]

• link seems to work, if you have no problems with this company then you are in the lucky minority. Of the 30+ reviews 23 gave them one star and have comments such as:
• • Worst experience with any shipping company 11/03/2013

    5 of 7 Ciao users found the following review helpful

    appalling service 08/03/2013

    Avoid at all costs! 07/03/2013

    Arrogant, horrible customer service 21/01/2013

    Don't use Seven Seas, it is the most untrustworthy company ever 25/09/2012

    Steer well clear of Seven Seas 25/09/2012

    "No hidden charges or surprises" HAH! 25/09/2012

    a lot of hidden fees 28/06/2012

    Someone call Bruce Willis. We need a hostage negotiator. 06/09/2012

    etc etc etc

    cost is the cheapest for a good reason, it's the worst service (for most people) due to the staff being, unhelpful, clueless and rude. They appear to have no effective tracking system in place and ignore emails. When things go wrong they don't want to know. Up to you if you want to risk it with the cheapest.
    

Edited April 6, 2013 by sms747

[mogandave]

Do yourseld a favor and hust buy new sh*t.

[Bmouthboyo]

Do yourseld a favor and hust buy new sh*t.

Well I do own possessions which I would like to have me.

I have been recommended Dynamic International by my new employers, does anyone have any experience with them?

[rwdrwdrwd]

Do yourseld a favor and hust buy new sh*t.

Well I do own possessions which I would like to have me.

I have been recommended Dynamic International by my new employers, does anyone have any experience with them?

Yes, that's who I used as per the review above - they were great

[Bmouthboyo]

Do yourseld a favor and hust buy new sh*t.

Well I do own possessions which I would like to have me.

I have been recommended Dynamic International by my new employers, does anyone have any experience with them?

Yes, that's who I used as per the review above - they were great

Ah thanks, sorry I missed the company name before. they are the service that cost you 6000TBH scanning fee? We will only be shipping about 5 box,s now and not bothering with my TV as I have ditched the box so nothing safe to transport in. Hopefully we wont incur such a harsh fee slapped ontop.

[Litlos]

Best of luck on the move. A couple of websites that may be of use are powerbuy dot com which has a sort of English interface function and the Sponsor site of Invadeit.co.th these should give you some ideas on pricing for household goods. For the Imac if possible I would take the HDD out and carry as personal goods and let the rest come by freight (not an Apple guru so could be wrong here).

I was looking at about 40in TV's in Tesco the other day at about 14000Bht. The Tesco website is rubbish so you will need to go for a look. For household goods there is basically Big C or Tesco with similar prices and occasional other local stores with some items that may or may not be genuine, or the sponsor site of InvadeIT, I have bought from them before and they are reliable, just a few days for delivery. Buyer beware was written with Thailand in mind, so be careful on real and fake when buying outside of department type stores. There is also Robinsons that do some good deals or more likely actually have what you are looking for. Thailand is frustrating in you know exactly what you want, but cannot find it, even though you know it is here.

Interestingly one of the best things I have brought with me is a decent set of kitchen knives (Wiltshire). In Thailand it is either very cheap or expensive on knives, oh and a decent can opener.

Please repost on experiences as that is how we all learn. And you will learn what TIT really means (lol).

Cheers

[Litlos]

_{Lost the edit option it appears. Must be Saturday night and modifications on the forum.}

_{I meant powerbuy.co.th.}

_Chee

[rwdrwdrwd]

Ah thanks, sorry I missed the company name before. they are the service that cost you 6000TBH scanning fee? We will only be shipping about 5 box,s now and not bothering with my TV as I have ditched the box so nothing safe to transport in. Hopefully we wont incur such a harsh fee slapped ontop.

Customs itself leveraged the scan fee (which was 15,000 on a declared value of 150,000)- this charge is not related to the shipper at all. To be honest, I believe that unless you are extremely lucky (and being realistic you're unlikely to be so as a foreigner), unless you are willing to spend countless hours schmoozing and haggling you will be hit with a fee one way or another for around 10 - 30% of the declared value so if you're going ship, I would budget for it. You can treat it as a bonus if it sails through un-levied.

In terms of your TV, certainly in the case of Dynamic International they pack for you and it is done extremely professionally. We shipped numerous fragile items, notably a 60kg single piece glass table, flat screen 3d tv, lots of porcelain. We had one broken lampshade, everything else was spotless.

If it helps at all, my thought process on 'to ship or to sell' was this:

As other posters have mentioned yes you can buy the vast majority of items here, but from what I see it's generally a poor selection and is about 20% higher than in the UK, if you have items you like so much that you are considering shipping them then I suppose you have to weigh up the financial and time impact of firstly selling all the items before you travel (or storing them), and the same factors when researching, locating and purchasing replacements in Thailand. My perspective was that I could sell 3000 worth of stuff for 1500 and around 40 hours total time spent selling, buying equivalent quality replacements would have cost 4200 and 40 hours time.

So to ship:

Shipping = -1500 including insurance for the whole lot

Scan Fee = -300

Time spent sorting = 8 hours

= Total -1800 and 8 hours work

To sell and repurchase

Credit for selling items = 1500

Cost of equivalent replacements = 3600

Time spent sorting = 80 hours

= Total -2100 and 80 hours work

In the extremely unlikely event I found the same items at the same price as in the UK (3000) then this gives

= Total -1500 and 80 hours work

Which would mean the equivalent of earning 4.16 an hour for the 72 hours spent getting replacements, not to mention the cost of fuel, phone calls, delivery charges etc

Edited April 6, 2013 by rwdrwdrwd

[Bmouthboyo]

Ah thanks, sorry I missed the company name before. they are the service that cost you 6000TBH scanning fee? We will only be shipping about 5 box,s now and not bothering with my TV as I have ditched the box so nothing safe to transport in. Hopefully we wont incur such a harsh fee slapped ontop.

Customs itself leveraged the scan fee (which was 15,000 on a declared value of 150,000)- this charge is not related to the shipper at all. To be honest, I believe that unless you are extremely lucky (and being realistic you're unlikely to be so as a foreigner), unless you are willing to spend countless hours schmoozing and haggling you will be hit with a fee one way or another for around 10 - 30% of the declared value so if you're going ship, I would budget for it. You can treat it as a bonus if it sails through un-levied.

In terms of your TV, certainly in the case of Dynamic International they pack for you and it is done extremely professionally. We shipped numerous fragile items, notably a 60kg single piece glass table, flat screen 3d tv, lots of porcelain. We had one broken lampshade, everything else was spotless.

If it helps at all, my thought process on 'to ship or to sell' was this:

As other posters have mentioned yes you can buy the vast majority of items here, but from what I see it's generally a poor selection and is about 20% higher than in the UK, if you have items you like so much that you are considering shipping them then I suppose you have to weigh up the financial and time impact of firstly selling all the items before you travel (or storing them), and the same factors when researching, locating and purchasing replacements in Thailand. My perspective was that I could sell 3000 worth of stuff for 1500 and around 40 hours total time spent selling, buying equivalent quality replacements would have cost 4200 and 40 hours time.

So to ship:

Shipping = -1500 including insurance for the whole lot

Scan Fee = -300

Time spent sorting = 8 hours

= Total -1800 and 8 hours work

To sell and repurchase

Credit for selling items = 1500

Cost of equivalent replacements = 3600

Time spent sorting = 80 hours

= Total -2100 and 80 hours work

In the extremely unlikely event I found the same items at the same price as in the UK (3000) then this gives

= Total -1500 and 80 hours work

Which would mean the equivalent of earning 4.16 an hour for the 72 hours spent getting replacements, not to mention the cost of fuel, phone calls, delivery charges etc

My logic exactly, thanks for all hour help. I guess I need to relax and brace for thai cusoms to charge a little, howpfully if it's sorted by my work it'll be OK but not end of the world if it does incure small fee.

My employer said we shoukd have our working visas by end of September when we fly out first week of August, so about 8 weeks. We will probably have to pack the box's etc and bet the company to collect from the in laws mid August, so we avoid any storage fees. Will they be OK if we pack them or do the company need to pack to see that thnga arnt broken for insurance etc?

[Bmouthboyo]

Best of luck on the move. A couple of websites that may be of use are powerbuy dot com which has a sort of English interface function and the Sponsor site of Invadeit.co.th these should give you some ideas on pricing for household goods. For the Imac if possible I would take the HDD out and carry as personal goods and let the rest come by freight (not an Apple guru so could be wrong here).

I was looking at about 40in TV's in Tesco the other day at about 14000Bht. The Tesco website is rubbish so you will need to go for a look. For household goods there is basically Big C or Tesco with similar prices and occasional other local stores with some items that may or may not be genuine, or the sponsor site of InvadeIT, I have bought from them before and they are reliable, just a few days for delivery. Buyer beware was written with Thailand in mind, so be careful on real and fake when buying outside of department type stores. There is also Robinsons that do some good deals or more likely actually have what you are looking for. Thailand is frustrating in you know exactly what you want, but cannot find it, even though you know it is here.

Interestingly one of the best things I have brought with me is a decent set of kitchen knives (Wiltshire). In Thailand it is either very cheap or expensive on knives, oh and a decent can opener.

Please repost on experiences as that is how we all learn. And you will learn what TIT really means (lol).

Cheers

Thank you also for the info, had a good look and seems they do have some good prices, once you work out the equivalent EU model numbers for TV's etc. Nice to know you can order some things online in Thailand. does delivery for items tend to compare to UK (within Thailand)? I buy a lot online but assumed that'd stop once there. How hard is it collecting parcels you have missed there? Nervous about the move but also excited. You only live once hey

[Litlos]

Best of luck on the move. A couple of websites that may be of use are powerbuy dot com which has a sort of English interface function and the Sponsor site of Invadeit.co.th these should give you some ideas on pricing for household goods. For the Imac if possible I would take the HDD out and carry as personal goods and let the rest come by freight (not an Apple guru so could be wrong here).

I was looking at about 40in TV's in Tesco the other day at about 14000Bht. The Tesco website is rubbish so you will need to go for a look. For household goods there is basically Big C or Tesco with similar prices and occasional other local stores with some items that may or may not be genuine, or the sponsor site of InvadeIT, I have bought from them before and they are reliable, just a few days for delivery. Buyer beware was written with Thailand in mind, so be careful on real and fake when buying outside of department type stores. There is also Robinsons that do some good deals or more likely actually have what you are looking for. Thailand is frustrating in you know exactly what you want, but cannot find it, even though you know it is here.

Interestingly one of the best things I have brought with me is a decent set of kitchen knives (Wiltshire). In Thailand it is either very cheap or expensive on knives, oh and a decent can opener.

Please repost on experiences as that is how we all learn. And you will learn what TIT really means (lol).

Cheers

Thank you also for the info, had a good look and seems they do have some good prices, once you work out the equivalent EU model numbers for TV's etc. Nice to know you can order some things online in Thailand. does delivery for items tend to compare to UK (within Thailand)? I buy a lot online but assumed that'd stop once there. How hard is it collecting parcels you have missed there? Nervous about the move but also excited. You only live once hey

I forgot to mention Makro which is like a bulk buy place that also sells small quantities, they will sell the TV's etc at competitive prices, which is where I am heading now as light traffic on a Sunday in Bangkok. There is also directtoshop dot com which is the online version of Home Pro. Most of the physical shops open at 10am and close about 8 or 10pm.

I live in a condo and parcels are delivered to the condo office and we pick up from there, a note in the letterbox to advise (all in Thai but once you know easy enough). There are numerous threads on here about the tax levied if bringing things in via DHL and FedEx, nothing to complimentary. The common ways of getting things in without paying customs seems to be get delivery done to O/S address and forwarded on. I have a Thai partner so I get things sent in her name where possible which is another way of avoiding the Farang (foreigner) tax on incoming goods.

A couple of other things that came up recemtly. If bringing in a smart phone then you will need to ensure you use the right service provider in Thailand for the frequency of the phone. A friend brought in a Motorola from USA AT&T, works fine for calls on AIS but no internet. It looks like it would work on True-H or Dtac though. Wikipedia or similar will show frequencies, the problem is whether is 850 or 900 MHz for data. Theoretically Thailand should have 3g on 2100mhz soon, but there will be a long time with the legacy 850/900 still in place.

Before coming get yourself an International Driving Permit (International licence). If you have this you can get a Thai drivers licence easily and not have to do the diving test. Once you have a Thai licence no need to carry passport (nobody does, but officially supposed to, carry a copy though) and I have used it for photo ID for things like bank accounts opening and catching internal flights. I always get a smile when using my Thai licence as ID. Also will get you Thai price for entry to some attractions (zoo's, national parks etc)

Make lots of copies of passport photo page as everyone will want one initially (Bank, Condo etc etc). Some may also want the page with the immigration stamp, work permit etc, but you will need to wait for those.

Interestingly some bank branches are open 7 days a week. For sure in Central Rama 9 there is one floor that has about 10 different banks all open on Sat and Sun. Central Dept store on Rama 9 is accessed by using MRT (Underground) and getting off at Rama 9 stop, may also be referred to a Phra Ram 9 the terms appear to be interchangeable.

The addresses in Thailand are based on Lot numbers rather than Street numbers so basically useless for navigation. Google and Longdo maps are your friend as well as a printer so you can show to Somchai the taxi driver. For getting around Bangkok I use BTS (Skytrain) and/or MRT. If this does not go close enough then use a taxi.

The taxi theory works great unless it is raining or the afternoon of the last Friday of the month when everyone has just been paid and looking to go out. Beware of empty ATM's around the end/beginning of the month period as well.

Another useful site is Thai2english dot com. If nothing else learn the numbers in Thai as that will make things a lot easier for getting around. Also

thaiwaysmagazine dot com /thai_learning/speaking_thai_numbers.html is pretty good for pronunciation examples.

Cheers

[Whiskylover]

Congrats Op on the new job and welcome to BKK.

There's some good points mentioned in the threads. But try not to get stressed out too much.

You're allowed to import one air shipment or one sea shipment duty free. There is more information on the thai customs website.

The mrs and I recently shipped a 20 foot containers worth of goods here from our previous location and shipped everything through a relocation company, including electronics, kitchenware and expensive art work.

If your company has a preferred shipper then definitely approach them as they should have experience this side with thai customs (which is where the problems can arise)

My advice,

Budget for a contingency fee out of your allowance. Keep your goods in your home country until all your paper work is in order this side and that will give you time to work out what you really need vs don't need.

There are also a few no-no items which can't be shipped to LOS, food, alcohol, buddha images and multiple items of the same electronics, plus a few others. Your shipper should know this.

Yes, the whole shipping thing can be a hassle, but if you have a good agent this side things will be a little easier.

WL

[Bmouthboyo]

Thank you for advice, very helpful and puts my mind at ease a little.

Do all shipping companies use the same size box's? I will have to box our stuff prior to leaving and then arrange pick up etc once I am out there and have my working visa.

It would be a pain to have to get the in laws to unpack everything and repack in a companies box's in our absence. Also if they do all use same dimensions does anyone know the best place to buy them?

thanks again

[FunFon]

Things that you really don't want to walk away from should only be transported in the ways that don't attract custom's attention, IOW incoming traveller's luggage and regular sea post.

Anything of pure financial value only, if the shipping cost is anywhere near half it's value, don't bother, buy here.

You'll quite likely have friends or you yourself will be shuttling back and forth with spare luggage capacity, don't have to bring it all over at once.

You sure the employer won't give you cash in hand rather than only using the allowance for shipping?

[burnsie]

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.

My wife and I are doing the move back to los in a month and were thinking of putting everything in storage, but after getting some prices which were very high and toying with the idea of renting a garage, which with the UK climate would probably mean chucking most of the stuff away after the damp has set in, are seriously thinking of shipping the contents of our 3 bed house back to Thailand.

We can't leave our belongings at home, as we have let the house for for a year and after the year will continue to rent.

After your comments about dynamic international, I've asked them for a quote and have also gone to United Relocations asking then for a quote as well, what was the procedure once the goods were loaded up and taking from your address in the UK???. The goods will be getting shipped under my wife's name as a returning Thai citizen, the only problem is ,my wife has my surname and I'm stressing at the fact that once customs sees this they'll start their games trying to extract as much cash as they can from us.

Are there any other tips or advice from TV members about shipping under the returning Thai citizen scheme?? if we got hit with a 15000b 'scan fee' I'd be over the moon!!

Regards Burnsie.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[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

7 Seas picked them up from here on BH Monday so that should keep wife happy...300 Kilo of (krup) goods gone including the microwave oven but at least I still have the kitchen sink and a single knife,fork and spoon for the next couple of weeks.

Deal is door to port but leave the pick up to her and her mates.

One is purely by co incid a C.O....ahh old school girls together.eh....hows the weather?

[harrylee]

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. . .

Yes you are right here its our duty and right too.

[minky333]

An interesting read!!! how did you get on?

we are just about to start the process and im busy doing my homework on it!!

cheers!!!

[Bmouthboyo]

Sorry for the late reply, busy busy busy.

In the end we used the BA baggage allowance or 2 cases upto 32kg each and paid for an extra baggage at about £55 i think. This got most of our essentials out, the rest we stored at the inlaws into boxes labelled such as priority etc. We have just had a few visitors so that allowed us another case of 20kg with their airline which we skyped with the family to put bits in we wanted, as well as stuff we ordered online you cant get out here in Thailand without paying arm and a leg in postage etc.

Over all we bought most of the stuff we needed out here like TV, cooking utensils etc and had mates bring things like paella pan, aftershaves, cooking spice i cant get here.

Good luck with your move, we love it here