Shipping Experience: Door to Port from Florida to Bengaluru

[sipit]

Well, finally the container made it home yesterday and we are in full swing hunting for the boxes . I thought this might be good time to jot down my experience before the memory fades away. I have benefitted immensely learning from other’s experience so here’s my part to give back to the community. I hope it will be some help to other r2iers.

We relocated from South Florida to Bengaluru. Given the close proximity to Miami/Port Everglades port we had little difficulty finding a good shipping company in Ft Lauderdale. The folks were very professional, easy to work with, answered all our dumb questions. We approached this company (if anyone needs a reference pm me) about three weeks before the shipping date. We were looking for a 20 ft container (the original plan was to share but we ended up filling 3/4th of a 20ft container, so went with a full container). We got a quote for around $4200 i.e. door to port. This means, the guys would drop the container in front of the house and pick up and head to the port once loaded. They offered two free hours and any delay after that would charge $75 an hour. The price would include taking the container all the way to Bangalore port. It excluded all, meaning, everything once it reaches Bangalore – details later.

In the US, the container was supposed to be dropped at around 3pm, but for various reasons made it around 7pm. The shipping company was nice enough to leave the container all night on my driveway and pick it up the next day with no extra charge. That gave us all evening to load, plus we made few more trips Wal-mart the next day before finally sealing it. I had rented dollies, ramps and other utilities from nearby Home Depot tool store earlier that day. We took about three to four hours to load the 20ft container. Figuring out what goes first and then next wasn’t a big deal. Moved sofa, a bed and few large boxes all the way to the back. Then, stacked the boxes in the middle. We put the TV box in between twin mattresses and made it lean against one side. The last one to go was love seats, master bed mattress. We were mostly done the day the container arrived except for the few last-minute stuff that we bought the next day.

Around 11:30am the next day the driver stopped by, sealed the container and gave us the receipt and took off. We put our own padlock for extra safety. I noted down the container number, which came handy while tracking it online on the vessel company website. The shipping company in the US asked for the list of items the day after the container left. By then we had our list handy so emailed it the next day. I think 3-4 days later we received the Bill of Lading which had, including other details, the forwarding agent contact info in Bangalore. The company also sent us their version of the package list. We had five more days before we flew so with very few things in the kitchen we thoroughly enjoyed the hospitality extended by our friends. Since we knew the container would take 6-8 weeks, we had kept aside most of our clothes, laptops, Wii and few basic stuff to get going in Bengaluru after we arrived.

After we arrived here in Bangalore the challenges were quite different - starting with getting a maid, arranging for milk delivery, registering online for electricity and phone bills, etc. I will spare this part and fast forward to the container arrival. Since I was tracking the vessel website I knew exactly where it was. When the website updated saying the container made it to Chennai I called the forwarding agent, who had slightly outdated info (surprise!!). I had to give him the news that the container has already made it to Chennai. That brings to the point what parties are involved here. First, the (a) forwarding agent, the name you will see on your Bill of Lading. This company’s job is to notify you about the arrival of the cargo and is (supposed) to work with your (b) clearing agents (CHA), the second party. They primarily are the cargo’s agents to get the paper work done. They are supposed to file a paper, called, manifest file ITD (??). Once this is filed, it makes into the custom’s system when the CHA can lookup to pick the container. The (c) vessel company is the third party that is responsible for giving you a delivery order (DO). This DO is valid for three days, so you will have to get all ducks lined up so you will have DO ready during the taking out of the container. Until the container is returned to the vessel company they will keep charging you $10 every day. The clock starts ticking once the container arrives in Bangalore.

The forwarding agent, apparently is not responsible for clearing your stuff. So, you will need a CHA company to do that. Just when I started looking for a CHA, my cousin referred to his agent who does most of the import/export for his company. Not knowing how useful this company might be, I went ahead and signed up with him. If you consider taking Door to Port option, yes, you will certainly save good amount of money but be prepared to do most of the work yourself. I quickly realized that this CHA I had hired, besides putting a stamp on the paper the company wouldn’t help me much, since they didn’t work in clearing household items, which is slightly a different ballgame.

Here’s the timeline – the container arrived in Bangalore on Tuesday night. I got the container cleared the following Wednesday. During this period, each of the three parties is supposed to coordinate and get the paper work completed, so you can go for inspection. If they don’t coordinate properly, which was the case in my situation you better jump in with a project manager cap. Calling, coordinating, pleading and threatening will be part of daily routine for 3-4 days until the you go to get the container. During this time you will be paying ConCor (Container Corporation of India) as well as the vessel company, on per-day basis.

I went to Whitefield on the following Tuesday morning. We had to coordinate getting the container placed, so the inspector came and inspected the container. You will also need to get a Concor container, so that during inspection the stuff from you container will be moved after inspection to the Concor container. The inspector sits with your paper work randomly picking boxes for inspection. Once the list is made, the CHA locks and seals the Concor container and we are back to the inspector’s office. During this time you will sit with the big guy and go back and forth on what is in the container and what it is worth. I will spare the details since other’s have already written about how the process works :-) (read bribe here) By the time we were ready it was 3:30 by then State Bank of India was closed. I left with really getting pissed off since I had to waste one more day to get the container home.

The next day I had to coordinate a 20 ft cantor (closed truck) to haul stuff from the Concor container to home. The company quoted around Rs 3,500 to pick up and drop off at my place. I made it to whitefield around 10:30am, paid the duty, then went to Concor and cleared all dues (charged about Rs 6500). The Concor payment included moving around the container, moving stuff during inspection and finally loading your stuff into your truck. Around 2pm is when my truck showed up. The Concor folks loaded the truck and by 3pm we were ready to get going. We received a copy of Transfer of Residence with list of items, receipt from Concor (exit form). Two things to remember – if you are living in a community like Mantri, Sobha or one of those make sure you get the container before the cut off time (typically 6 or 7pm.) If you get past that cut off the security crew can be really pain in the neck. We ran into that situation, anyways, we managed to get the container inside and by 8pm or so we had all the stuff moved in.

Here’s the total:
In the US (approx $4600),
Boxes, packaging material, Home Depot tools etc. = $400
Container shipping cost = $4200

In Bangalore (approx Rs 30000),
Forwarding agent = 6000
Vessel company = 500 + 1200
CHA = 6000
Truck = 3500
Unloading crew = 2000
Customs = 12000


So, there you go – hope this helps who take door to port option. Now, back to unpacking the boxes :))