Ciao, this shipping companies are driving me crazy, with all these hidden charges and all.....

Do any of you know how much are the Destination Charges when shipping to Chennai?

We are currently in Sri Lanka trying to organize the shipping of our motorbike back to India and again we are asking ourselves: Sea or Air freight?
By sea is 4 times more cheap than by air, but then...?

Any advise of any kind is super welcome

__________________
Him + Her + The Bike = 300kg. Everything else is Fleeting
**http://www.300kg.eu**

If you plan to ship to mumbai, and need any help or information, do let me know.
In Mumbai, Seco shipping are very reliable with getting vehicles cleared from the port. The contact person is Mustafa on 09892117786. Tell him you got his number from 'Daniel from the petrol pump'. Their website is http://www.secoshipping.com.

If you can't get through, PM me the info you need, and I can go and drop by their office since I work just a minute from their office.

Hope this helps,

Daniel.

To avoid hidden costs, break down the total charge in the following components.
1. Chargeable weight and price per weight unit.
2. Dangerous good fee.
3. Costs of crating (material cost and labour cost included), if the bike needs to be crated for transport.
4. Custom fees and administration charges.
5. Service fee.
6. Harbour or airport handling fee
7. Harbour or airport fee in the harbour/airport of destination.
8. Storage charge, in case you don't pick up your bike immediately.
9. Credit card fee.

To give an example, I want to ship my bike by plane from Kathmandu to Bangkok and got the following price indications.
1. Chargeable weight: 335; unit price: 137 + 20 nr = 52595 nr (405 €).
2. Dangerous good fee: 9000 nr (70€).
3. Crating: 8000 nr, including labour cost (65 €).
4. Airway bill: 200 nr (2 €)
4/5. Custom costs and service fee: 15000 nr (115 €).
6. Handling fee Kathmandu: included in service costs.
7. Handling fee Bangkok: 30 usd (25 €).
8. Storage charge Bangkok : 25 usd per day (20 €).
9. Creditcard costs: 3.75% (25 €).
Total cost: 700 €.

__________________
Voorbij de horizon / beyond the horizon: www.wonderfultravels.nl

Sorry, I don´t have any exact answers to what you were looking for... but first of all, if you´re talking about real seafreight (not just “hitching a ride” on some smaller boat, for example), then I doubt airfreight is actually gonna cost you 4 times more than seafreight. Seafreight usually gets a lot cheaper than airfreight only, when your shipping distance is really long. Even then I doubt by sea would cost only 25% of what the same shipping would cost by air.

I haven´t shipped by sea to Chennai, but I have shipped by air out of Chennai in January 2008.... this is just my gut feeling, but destination charges at the seaport could bring a few surprises. And they do love their bureaucracy in India! Also when I was searching for options out of Chennai, I heard, that there had been some ´slow-down´ strikes at the seaport, and it meant nobody had a clue, if shipping by sea to Thailand would have taken two weeks, or six weeks. Even the quotes that I got were roughly the same by air and by sea – that actually made my decision very easy!

It is not exact science, but usually the shorter the distance, the clearer the benefits of using airfreight. Just generally seems to create less headache at both ends, although exceptions are always possible.

Too bad that there´s no ferry connection between India and Sri Lanka... (and was there not a plan to re-open such a service not a long time ago, wonder what happened to that)??

Thank you for your replies (...I haven't seen them until now..)

I found out the service charges in Chennai (in indian rupees)

DIRECT CONSIGNEE

DO CHARGES 3500.00 PER HBL
DOC CHARGES 1250.00 PER HBL
LCL CHARGES 800.00 PER W/M
TRANSPORTATION CHARGES 650.00 PER W/M
DESTUFFING CHARGES 825.00 PER W/M
DG SURCHARGES $150.00 PER HBL(FOR DG CARGO)
PORT HANDLING CHARGES $50.00 PER HBL(FOR PERSONAL EFFECTS)
CDS CHARGES – AT ACTUAL (at the time of delivery)
SERVICE TAX - 12.36% ON TOTAL AMOUNT


They quoted me the airfreight to be around 700$ (2 $/kg) while the ocean freight around 200$ (15$/cbm), so even considering the destination charges the sea freight seems cheaper...

I shipped from Mumbai to Colombo with them and we ended up with 1 month and a half delay, the key of the bike lost (found weeks later lost inside the engine), a panier dented and 30km more on the bike.



Yes, there was a plan of re-opening the ferry service and we even went to check at TalaiMannar but the road that goes to of the peninsula ends agains a green gate (Army I guess), nothing else there and nobody know nothing.

Could you please pm a contact of the agency you used when you shipped out of Chennai?

I don't know if they are cheating me with this quotes, but what to do...


By the way:
If anybody needs a Crate in Chennai at the beginning of January pm me!

__________________
Him + Her + The Bike = 300kg. Everything else is Fleeting
**http://www.300kg.eu**

I´ve sent you PM (but note, that my shipping was a long time ago, so that freight agent might not even exist any more!)


Also that quote by sea, sorry I´m really bad in math, but including those destination charges, how much does it all add up to then (the total sum I mean)?

Well....yes...more than 500$.
But the air freight quote doesn't include the destination charges...
(there is a bit a mistery around the air freight destination charges....)



Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

__________________
Him + Her + The Bike = 300kg. Everything else is Fleeting
**http://www.300kg.eu**

Airports are generally better suited for handling small shipments like yours. Problem with seaport(s) is, they are built to move shiploads (=huge volumes) of cargo, so the machinery is equally enormous. When it´s just one single package, that you´ll want to get into the ship at the sending end, and out of the ship at the other end, still that same infrastructure has to be used to get it done (usually they are not gonna treat your shipment any differently than they treat other bigger shipments). So it will probably take days at both ends, and startup costs for those big harbour machines could be substantial, even if your package handling only takes them a few minutes.


And if the place happens to be corrupt, then the process could really slow down and start to get on your nerves (and wallet..!) I don´t know about Chennai seaport, though. But unless the price difference is REALLY substantial, personally if I could afford, I´d send the bike by air. It´s not really guaranteed to go smooth as butter either, but seaport+India just sounds like a challenging combination to me. And by air, at least any delays should be much shorter.