Thread: customs agents Adelaide

To avoid the possibility of being totally ripped-off you need to arrange all this before you place the order. What, exactly, is included for the price that your 'great' Chinese freight forwarder is charging you? I'll PM you the name of the freight forwarder/customs clearer that I used to use. There'll be a bit of paperwork to do and hopefully the company you're dealing with will be able to complete their part without making a complete hash of it. Beware!!

Agility Logistics. Near the airport.

thanks guys, all locked into Quanterm Freight. just the manufacturer spitting over what they are hoping to charge him....
We how have 5 others ready to buy from same outfit so he has a little pressure on him to get it sorted.

Yeah, funny with the sellers how FOB becomes not FOB when they're using their own freight forwarder. Their forwarder moves the cost of getting the thing to the port to you and you also have no control over what the forwarder charges for the shipping. Add to that what a local company can charge when the thing arrives and you've got no choices due to time constraints and the whole cost equation can be thrown out the window.

Quanterm don't want to charge him anything, they just expect him to live up to his FOB commitment.

Any price quoted is usually way different to what it costs in the end. Importing stuff attracts so many add on costs you never thought existed you will shake your head and just sign the cheque. I used to reckon buying a car was the greatest rip of but importing is worse with all the additional charges. The kicker is they give you a very strict time frame to move it once it has cleared customs, get it done or suffer huge daily costs until you do.

I now have an itemised invoice of ALL expenses upon arrival,
this outfit have been great to deal with....so far

bonus is the Adelaide depot for collection has a fella working there that I am related too, he has assured me that release pressure wont be an issue.

I'm surprised they already know what bond store the container is going to. I guess Adelaide is fairly small, maybe there is only one place.

I'm with Dave, we have both done a lot of importing.

Originally Posted by Tonyz

this should be elsewhere....but its indirectly related to wood,, a new laser cutter that cuts 6mm MDF

Any chance you could give some details on your purchase Tonyz? I purchased an Emblazer 2 laser engraver a while ago and while I love what it can do, it's sorely limited with its low powered laser. I was not willing to dip the toe into importing at the time to buy a CO2 unit from China at the time but I can see my frustrations getting the better of me and will be looking to upgrade in the future.

done & dusted, whole thing was a piece of cake.

Quanterm, were brilliant to work with, always answered email, even on weekends, we watched the ship movement daily, until Singapore where it kept heading towards India, but no worries within 24 hours new ship details. Where informed on 18th Dec when it would be ready for collection, so 2 weeks ago picked it up, and last week unpacked and now running like a girl on heat.

so machine as per our order $au5200. freight/customs/GST/etc etc $au1510. more than we budgeted for but seeing what it can do, and 3 prospective business clients already and our own markets, things look good.

Pintek will PM you details.

I don't know anything about port and bond store charges in Adelaide, but it wouldn't surprise me if it cost more than Sydney and Melbourne. 24% on top of the FOB cost of the machine would have been nice so 30% is probably not too bad. A change of ship in Singapore is a fairly regular occurrence dependent on the container port of origin in China. The worst, ie. slowest, shipments are those that come from Northern China where there is also likely to be a change in Shanghai, they seem to take forever. I guess it's just one of the things you have to put up with when you live in a little backwater of a country. I think that we can all agree that it does have its compensations though.

Sounds like you're already making it pay for itself.

attached a copy of freight invoice

try this , stupid Adobe files

Thanks for the details about this importing process. I don't plan to import anything in the short term but it is all very interesting. Can you post a link to the actual machine you bought? Just out of curiosity. I don't actually have any plans for a laser cutter myself.