Global Parts Shipping,All In Good Time.

Thank you for the further clarification and I hope that you’re able to establish your proposed scheme. 🙂

Ozjag,
Thank you for the comments, all helps to resolve how things can work and not work.
In terms of buyers wanting stuff immediately they can always do things anyway they chose. I figure in my experience things always come piecemeal – stuff sits on the shelf until other stuff that makes it viable to progress an aspect of a project becomes available. In the past I have gagged to have the satisfaction of holding something in my hands but then I reflect it sits on my shelf waiting for another enabling bit that may be months or years away. The key thing is to ‘know it is available and on the way’ rather than air freighted at great cost like a perishable.

In terms of predicting when a shipment might be full, you are right, it may never be ‘full.’ But what is full ? A tea chest or a 20′ shipping container ? It doesn’t really matter. Perhaps the way to start this off is to do two shipments per year – one in June and one in December. Whatever is there, is there, when the truck arrives to pick it up. Maybe quarterly – March, June, Sept, Dec. For me, having a depot in the UK where I can send stuff that I might buy is quite useful, as it might be for somebody in the UK buying out of Australia. I find that I can get 2014 aluminium in the UK but only 2024 in Australia, while somebody restoring a US design in the UK might have trouble getting US type material in the UK. I would find it useful to combine small quantities of materials and bits at a depot knowing that I have them and that they will be safely dispatched. I might want to buy part of somebody’s library or bid on an auction on the other side of the world with some option for getting things handled locally.

Freight forwarders do everything from mangos to mining equipment. Their standard, initial response is to say ‘no problem, leave it to me’. If it’s a 23 year old they then put down the phone and call out across the room , ” I’ve got this cranky old goat who wants to move a rusty undercarriage, is that a steam train or elastic support underwear or something ?” Then they flip through charts of custom codes and try to figure out how to combine a rusty undercarraige and mangos in one shipment leaving next week. If it’s too hard for them then the whole thing becomes hard for everybody.

In respect of import duties small parcels today tend to get lost in the cavalcade of online ordered lipstick and Nike shoes, but the government will eventually catch up. Most folk just undervalue things. It’s like the old joke about the dying man fearing what his wife will do with his collection : “I hope she doesn’t sell it for what I told her I bought it for!”. In truth, to a dispassionate observer, most of this stuff is scrap metal, and can be defensibly described as such. Excise on old aeroplane bits will never fix any governments budget deficit. The real danger is that officialdom catogorizes scrap metal as a modern, functional aerospace component, in a circumstance where tariffs on aerospace might be more about protecting domestic manufacture of aerospace parts. So the garage restorer is presented with a horrific excise bill for scrap metal. Mostly the government is concerned with quarantine, on greasy, soily things and an easy way to modestly tithe what comes in, by relying on well prepared documentation and declarations. I might think that a piece of the Red Barons wing fabric with Maltese cross is priceless, the government would be happier to see it declared as ‘fabric sample’, because it fits a tariff code, and it’s true.

I don’t expect to be overrun with this concept. We are all to independent and feisty and secretive to make this hum. It does no harm to set something up and let folks know that an option exists for 2-4 bulk shipment ‘shuttles’ per year and a UK – Australia (and maybe other) depot arrangement to support getting more stuff happening.

PS I believe that sea freight is calculated on volume rather than weight, could be wrong on that though.

Hi Ed, sounds like a good idea but I fear too complicated to run smoothly, what happens if you get half the crate filled and no more large items show up for 6 months? My personal experience is that buyers generally want stuff sooner rather than later as well. The people I use say that anything up to 100kg is cheaper to go by air rather than sea and they can send a 1 cubic metre pallet for about $600 to the UK by sea.
Another major factor for people who have bought large items from me is that air freight to the UK has no import duties whereas sea freight has significant taxes and fees applied to it. Not to mention air freight is delivered to your door and sea freight goes to a depot where it has to be collected or extra delivery charges are added to it.

For example different items attract import duties at different rates, while some may be exempt. A similar situation exists between airworthy items and non-airworthy items; IIRC even between helicopter and general aviation parts.

Likewise some items attract VAT, while others don’t. These issues can be difficult to sort out even within a shipment from one consignee, let alone from different consignees.

Similarly who would allocate / decide who picked up the VAT portion of the cost?

From a customs perspective the consignee is responsible for identifying and applying the Commodity Coding to the goods and this could be difficult with ‘mixed-items’, e.g. if one item was mistakenly identified could the whole shipment be impounded? If so who would be responsible for sorting out the issues?

Twin Otter, thank you for your comments and for identifying one of the great frustrations in the process. To clarify my thoughts :

The principal benefit of the dropshop is to be a depot with a local, caring representative. For example a seller wishes to clear out a garage quickly, but does not have the time or temperament to deal with anyone but a local buyer. I buy a Lancaster mainwheel out of the garage over the phone and get a courier to pick it up and deliver it to Whitleys Dropshop. The seller is happy quickly clearing the garage. I am happy because I have the missing mainwheel for my project and no one is snapping at my heels to get it out of the garage while I fumble through a Minestrone soup of international freight regulations and problems, forcing me to deal with expensive freight forwarders who ONLY want to get it on as airfreight, because airfreight margins are better for them.

Whitley lets me know the Mainwheel has arrived. I am familiar with Australian Customs and Excise as the Australian dropshop. I tell Whitley, hypothetically, that the mainwheel is suitable for classification under 34-X-989-456 Tractor Wheels and Implements. If I am wrong, I have to fix it when Customs in Australia are unhappy, but I can troop down to the local customs office and sort it out. Whitley affixes my Australian address to the wheel and Customs declaration. Whitley secures a large wooden crate, and puts the mainwheel at the bottom, then surrounds it with other items individually addressed and declared that need to go to Australia, making sure to put somebody’s bubble canopy above the wheel. Once the crate is full, he contacts a number of freight forwarders and gets the best quote for surface shipping to Australia for ONE, itemised crate, for sending to the P&P Australian Dropshop. The more we do this, the more familiar we become with quarantine, customs, excise regulations between two anglophone nations with caring representatives at each end who are able to sort out issues if they arise.

In Australia, the freight forwarder notifies P&P that Customs have put a hold on the container, because a Quarantine sniffer dog has smelt soil in the timber crate. I rush down to the Customs office with the paperwork that Whitley has given me that shows that the mainwheel was steam cleaned using a Customs approved contractor in the UK and the timber crate was appropriately fumigated and we start to work through the issue. The crate is opened and the individual packages inspected. the dog goes crazy on one package, declared as scrap metal. It is opened and a dug up Browning falls out. I am cuffed and led away to the Police. Once I am released on bond, I ask Whitley what happened. He says the package came from someone he hadn’t dealt with before and they assured him that it was OK, just some old Hurricane tubes. We decide on a new policy : all packages sent to the dropshop are opened and checked, fumigated if necessary and returned to sender if ‘not right’. Really we need to deal with folk we know who recognise the benefit of mutuality. We also need to work cooperatively with Customs who are doing their job and whose help we need to navigate through lawful import of radium gauges and deactivated weapons, if that’s what folk want, down the track.

This kind of service is already done for niche things like paintings, for example. All we are doing is getting a niche channel going for aeroplane parts & materials, with nice caring people who know the difference between a FW190 and ME109, a Bristol Hercules and a Lockheed Hercules.

I would like to help you Ed. PM sent.

Thank you, PM replied to

Sorry to hear of your negative experience John Green.

My comments in #3 are what I perceive as being potential pitfalls in a sometimes complex transportation environment.

The Nottingham freight forwarding company that I used was excellent; I was able to visit the company and meet the person allocated to ‘handle’ the shipment. The service that he and the company provided was excellent, with regular updates throughout the shipping process (collected; on the plane; in Customs etc.) and I would not hesitate to recommend their services.

My previous experience with importing airframes for NAM, guided my decision to work with a professional company and heed their advice.

This comment at #3 is correct to the point that I assume that he/she has had first hand experience of the nightmare of administration connected to the transport of freight.

About three years ago, I was asked to help with the clearance thru’ British customs of a quantity of U.S marine equipment for use on board an ocean going sailboat undergoing refit in this country.

Freight forwarding agents located in Essex were asked to receive and clear. It became apparent that these people were expert in delay and obfuscation primarily because they imposed unnecessarily high penalty charges if the customer failed to complete the transaction within an impossibly narrow time slot. There was no ‘slack’ built into the schedule.

As #3 explains, if the consignment comprises differing items, the complications arising will turn a reasonable person into a gibbering idiot. I’m sure that my first grey hair arose from this experience. I hadn’t realised what an unpleasant and complicated business this could be. Perhaps I was just unlucky.

This sounds like a great idea and I wish you well. However having recently co-ordinated the importation of a set of ‘mixed aviation items’ from the Southern hemisphere into the UK, I suspect that the idea might be a little more complex than envisaged.

For example different items attract import duties at different rates, while some may be exempt. A similar situation exists between airworthy items and non-airworthy items; IIRC even between helicopter and general aviation parts.

Likewise some items attract VAT, while others don’t. These issues can be difficult to sort out even within a shipment from one consignee, let alone from different consignees.

Similarly who would allocate / decide who picked up the VAT portion of the cost?

From a customs perspective the consignee is responsible for identifying and applying the Commodity Coding to the goods and this could be difficult with ‘mixed-items’, e.g. if one item was mistakenly identified could the whole shipment be impounded? If so who would be responsible for sorting out the issues?

These types of issue are day to day issues with a good freight forwarding company, who can use their knowledge and expertise to guide you through what can be quite a maze of paperwork and regulation.

All that said good luck with trying to set up a scheme. 🙂

I would like to help you Ed. PM sent.