nokomis

I would love to buy some bamboo and rattan furniture in one of the countries we will be travelling in. If you have done this, was it expensive to ship, did your furniture arrive safely, etc.? Thanks for your help!!

Kathie

It will cost more to ship the furniture than it does to buy it. With solid wood, the problem is with cracking, moving from a moist climate to a dry one (indoors in the winter). This shouldn't be as much of a problem with rattan and bamboo. When a friend shipped home furniture and she had to pay for a whole shipping container. Also, note that the shipping price quoted to you does not typically include shipping to your home, but only to the nearest port. You will have to go to the port and escort your purchases through customs or else pay an expediter to do so, and to arrange transport to your home.

hawaiiantraveler

I have shipped two tables with chairs on separate occasions from BKK to Honolulu. A reputable furniture maker will also custom make a crate for your items . Shipping cost for a large coffee table was $186.00 and cost for a dining table with four chairs was around $285.00 US.

Kathie is correct when she says that delivery is to the nearest port. Luckily I had my delivery crew pick up the crates at Honolulu Harbor and deliver to my home where they took items out of the crate and carried up 38 stairs to my home. I am sure if I hired a delivery crew it would have doubled the cost at least.

Aloha!

rhkkmk

both of those costs seem very reasonable to me.... i had a very small collapsible side table shipped from laos and it cost $150 as i remember, but it was delivered directly to my house. that table has survived very well in this comparative dry climate with heat on 6+ months of the year.

air shipments, while even more expensive, are delivered to your house: ups air, fedex....

a container is in excess of $2500 i believe.

all this said the furniture is unique in an american setting and all wood and hand carved... a crack here or there only adds to its uniqueness.

nokomis

I appreciate this information....but nearest port has me wondering...can you specify a port such as somewhere in Florida? If this is possible then I have to arrange for someone to pick it up at the port? We have a house on the gulf side of Florida and could arrange this option.
Is the furniture insurable? Thanks for your help!

Craig

We shipped stuff from Thailand and India last year and have shipped from Cambodia and India in the past. Communications on delivery status weren't great but with phone calls and e-mails our things eventually got here in good shape. Usually you will be contacted from the port of entry and at that point you can arrange for someone to bring your shipment to your home address. Overall the process is not cheap but you are not paying a lot for the furniture in the first place and for us, these things are not available (especially custom-made Asian-influenced rattan furniture) here.

As for ports, Miami is certainly a port and there may be others. You can work that out when you make your purchase - no big deal. Your best insurance is to make your purchase on a credit card so that you have the option to file a dispute if things go awry...

marmot

I haven't done myself but quite a few of my U.S. visitors have.
As a general statement, they felt that buying furniture in Indonesia was still a good value, even with the cost of crating, shipping and importing.

A few did experience issues with cracks in the wood due to the climate differential. Reputable suppliers are aware of this problem and will take preventative measures / offer compensation. However, it does happen.

All expressed that the biggest problem was on the U.S. side. in clearance and delivery. Work this out in advance. You can definitely specify the port of entry and insure your shipment.

If the seller doesn't offer all of these services, find another seller.

marmot

One more point: Be careful that your furniture shipment doesn't include fabric pillows, cushions or coverings. These fall under separate tariff categories and can cause delay in importation.

kuluk

Ports to Florida include Jacksonville, Miami, Orlando and Tampa. You can also pre-contact a customs agent in your town and ask them about what ports to specify.

You defintely don't have to ship an entire container, that's just a marketing ploy to get you to go the whole hog. You can ship as little as one cubic meter to more ports, and it goes up by increments of 1/10 cbm after that. Plus fumigation charge and customs agent to pay in the US, plus any delivery etc etc. If you send an entire container, there is a chance the US government might order a random inspection of the container, which can be costly. But if you just do a cubic or so you should be ok.

When you are looking around, ask if anything is "knock down" meaning it can be taken apart/folded flat so that shipping is less, since it is by volume.

Have fun shopping!

qwovadis

Pier One

Saves a Tonne

jffc

here's our experience from our trip to vietnam last year...this was the first time we used a container to ship items back home: we shipped 4 large vases via 1 cubic meter container. while we really liked the vases, the process to get it home was a little painful. i'm not sure but i think we got hosed on the shipping somehow...so i was interested to see other people's experiences on this post.

the vases were each about 4 feet high, so quite large. the seller charged us 180 for shipping from vietnam and told us we would need to pay customs and filing fees in the US. how much we asked? they said those fees would be levied at the time of arrival in the US and they couldnt give us an estimate. we sort of went blindly with it, figuring that it couldn't be more than a few hundred bucks (not a good idea in hindsight). here's the actual nitty gritty charges:
ddc charges 31
customs filing 25
documentation fee 30
isf filing fee + bond charges 125
import handling fee 85
ocean terminal/security fee 45
inland transit 50
exam fee 65
loading charge 165 (this was at the warehouse once it got to our city)
extra warehousing charge 115 (this was b/c the container failed inspection upon arrival at port in NYC and had to be refumigated and this incurred warehousing charge since it took a few days to be inspected)
TOTAL 736

we were told these fees were a "little" high because there wasnt a cargo ship that went directly from vietnam to the US. they had to offload in hong kong, so there were some extra charges.

we had some sticker shock when we did the math. but at that point we were committed. we're traveling back to asia this year and would like to bring stuff back home but the shipping cost is certainly a deterrent.

rhkkmk

i have had very good luck with fedex and ups air....neither required any extra fees or containers.... one was an 8X10 heavy wool rug and others have been 15-25 kilos of stainless steel and general merchandise... in both cases it was $150-300.

a small table from laos sent via sea required no additional charges and took 3 months...

nokomis

Thanks so much for this info. Shipping fed ex or ups was handled by the business you purchased from or did you do this on your own?

rhkkmk

the sellers arranged all the shipping... you can ask not to have anything sent until a certain date so that you will be home when it arrives...

many large hotels can also arrange shipment, but i think it is best done by the seller.