Hello Ladies Thanks for starting this thread and thanks for the information. Next week my goods will be shipped but I don't have furniture but lots of other stuffs like cutleries, electronic items, bedsheets(which you get really very good ones here) clothes, books, cooking range.... I think it will take atleast a month to get the goods in India. I will come and let you know what all happened. India Egypt these are the countries where people just want to make some money so these people will surely bribe giving some reason or the other. Hope for the best.
Hi Aruna Your items will be shipped from Egypt to India? Do share with us your shipping experience to us. Which place India will it be shipped ? We are shipping to Bangalore soon.
Hi Vandana ya sure I will put up my experience here so that it will be helpful to others. My goods will be going to Thane/Mumbai.
Yeah we repackaged, but it is too much work! Not sure if it was worth it or if I should have simply spent the effort in bargaining with the customs Yes we used 20ft container and it held much more than I expected. When you talk to the shipping agencies they will tell you whether you need 20 or 40'.
IKEA has opened up in India. At least there is one in Hyderabad. So you might check if they have stuff that you need. US furniture tends to be very oversize and dominates small Indian houses. If you are really planning then make sure that the furniture is appropriate size. Also if you are near a big city then look for furniture which is labeled 'metro size' or 'loft size' they are more suitable for Indian homes. Another option is you could consider is shop for furniture in Delhi. There is a road full of furniture shops. Look for 'Panchkuia road' near 'Connaught Place'. You will get good quality furniture there for cheap. You could transport it by Truck and all put together it might work out cheaper than buying IKEA and paying for container etc. Also most IKEA furniture is not designed to last more than 5-10 years you will have to think about that too. We have furniture we purchased in Delhi 25 years ago and it still is good. My IKEA dining table, chairs came apart in 3 years. Being a woodworker I was able to repair it. Shelves are sagging with the weight of books there is no scope of any repair.
Agree with you. The average IKEA furniture is not worth the cost of shipping. However they do have some solid wood furniture. You will find that these pieces are quite expensive than similar items found in IKEA. But I was looking only for solid wood, period. I found some nice compact pieces that I did not find anywhere else and price was reasonable too (for solid wood).
Hi, We shipped our all things in 40' container last week. We had many furnitures, fitness equipments, clothes, kitchen items everything.. whatever we were using it for 15yrs. We had few new items too, so we asked the packers to re-pack them and didn't ship with original boxes. I think all those customs duty etc will be managed/handled by shipping company. So nothing to worry about.
Hi this is with reference to your below query. A 20 feet container can hold up to 1000 cubic feet of goods. If you do the packing yourself it would amount to lots of hassle and it may not be up to the standards of International packing. It is better to leave the job to a professional packing company. Moreover in case of damages, insurance would not cover the loss as it is packed by the owner instead of a licensed mover. Regarding the customs duty you may even go in for a duty package with the mover so that you dont have to worry if the actual duty is high.
We are also planning our move to India around end of year. I have done some preliminary scouting for shipping/containers the more I inquire the more confusing it gets. I would love to know your experiences/costs etc. Most of the people who have given us reference have gone in for shared container. I do not want to go for that as I have woodworking machinery.Though I wont be taking much furniture that we own I'm in the process of making some fine furniture to take to India. I also wanted to find out about packing as I have access to pallets and can make what are called liftvans. I need Insurance only for theft. Is that possible? Im not worried about damage much as I can pack as good as any packers and I dont have much stuff which is delicate. One of my relatives container was missing or broken into(this was about 20 year back)and they did not have proper insurance and they had not properly estimated the value of their stuff. So they lost a great deal of their very expensive belongings and the compensation was not even 10% of replacement cost. If you prefer I can PM you.
Sure PM me about the info which you want. We took 40 feet container and it got filled up entirely. We didn't wanted to go with shared container as things will get misplaced or lost. We took 'all risk' insurance for entire shipment, its covered for missing and damange items. There is a different website/forum where they discuss only for R2I, which is very good and informative. I am not quite sure whether I can mention details of that website here, please PM me if you need more info.
