I am looking at purchasing a 25 tonne excavator from the US to Australia without going through a third party. Is there any way I could do this, or is it inevitable? Also, how much would it cost?
You will have to go through a booking agent. I don't think it is possible to book direct with a ship. Make sure it is spotless clean or you will have problems with customs in Oz.
You'll definitely want to bring an import/export agent in on this as the paperwork needs to be spot on. Also, if your country is like mine you'll need a bond on file for the shipment. Additionally, you'll need to find out what taxes will be due when you import the machine. This is generally based on the purchase price of the machine. I sold a car to a guy from New Zealand years ago and he told me tax he had to pay to import the car was something like 75% of the purchase price. I sold a car to another guy that said his country charged 100% as the tax. (I could have these rates switched as that was 23 years ago, btw, memory isn't what it used to be...) Granted those were cars, but if they tax machines the same way you'll want to know that in advance. Something else to consider...if the reason you want to eliminate the third party is to save costs you may want to rethink that. If this is your first time importing from overseas you'll have a huge learning curve. In fact, you could end up spending more money because you won't know the expedient ways to do things. For instance, if your machine gets tied up in customs, for whatever reason, you could face daily storage charges that will eat you alive. Additionally, your freight forwarder will want to deal with a counterparty who knows their stuff and not with somebody who wants to "poor boy it". Bottom line...find out where you can save monies by doing things yourself and leave the rest to the pros. Start with a list of logistical items and fill in the gaps with items as you learn them. The #1 thing this will do for you is make you feel good about the money you pay the pros.
I imported 14t loader out of UK 3 yrs ago, cost NZ $17k total freight. Required cleanliness to showroom condition. There's item on net of 2 aprox 20t diggers packed into 40ft container.
@behive Did you go through a third party?
Yes, be pretty difficult otherwise, the admin component was aprox $3k
This company based in the UK have shipped many dump trucks for us from South Africa to Europe. http://www.fatuk.com/ I think they can do most shipping worldwide and would be worth a try to get a price from them. If you want a direct contract or intro let me know. Simon
Why ?
If the shop can not ship directly, you can only turn to a third party, that is international shipping company. Actually, I think some of forwarding companies are quite good and not too pricey, such as officeship.com, shipito and myus, which I have used before and now. However, among these three companies, I would prefer officeship for the lower shipping rate. So..you can search more information about international shipping and choose the most suitable one.