Question Best Shipping Company

[dannyc09]

Just looking at bringing a Majesty over to the UK and before doing so I wonder if any of the UK guys or gals have any thoughts on which is the best company to use?

I have heard a few nighmare stories about a them all but I know these will more than likely be isolated incidents.

Thoughts on care of item, reliability, price etc....

Cheers folks

 

[billy carr]

My experience with ups was they were on time, but quite rough handling my package. There is a crack in my case, I think the only way this could have happened is if a medium large man/woman stood on it to reach something. Next time I will use some other way.

 

[DrKev]

Packages can get damaged by anyone - the difference with the bigger international names is that damage, loss, or theft is less likely, delivery dates are reliable, and they offer full insurance and tracking, which is important. In the music store I used to work for we only used UPS for shipping instruments. Fedex (or possibly DHL) may have been equally fine but UPS had a depot in the same business park, which was an advantage for us.

Local/national postal services are more likely to lose or damage your guitar and the insurance payouts may be very limited. (Fine or smaller part or acessories but nothing expensive, bulky or delicate). Obviously with a lot of the guitar deals on this forum from the US to somewhere else we frequently see horror stories about USPS, some of which will have you shaking your head in disbelief. I would never choose them, and once the package arrives in the destination country it is handled by the local postal service, which won't be any better. (In France that is Chronopost and in the music store we never used them for anything valuable or breakable).

Whoever you choose, follow their recommendations for packing your instruments to the letter. If there is any damage in shipping, any failure to follow their rules may result in reduced insurance payout, or even no payout at all.

As I said at the beginning, no one shipping company has a perfect record. Also remember than any individual bad customer experience may not be representative of a shipping company's reliability and we have no central data collection to give real figures. BUT, I did work for a store that shipped 4000 guitars per year, to say nothing of other instruments, and audio equipment) and their decisions were in part based on past experience. In the year I worked there, we had very few damaged instruments returned because of shipping damage. In fact, the only one I distinctly remember was not UPS (a customer returned a faulty instrument via chronopost, who destroyed it). The bottom line is this - even tough I cannot give you any numbers or percentages the cheaper the service the more likely you are to have a problem and less recourse if there is a problem.

 

[ErnieJohn]

I have had 2 guitars delivered by UPS recently with no problems, the most recent was in its case in a in a cardboard box which was inside another padded cardboard box! my wife thought I bought a piano!

 

[dannyc09]

Thanks for that peeps.

I know people are always quicker to post negative experiences they may have and a result it does make it more difficult to make informed choices from just browsing.

Does anyone have an idea of the rough cost to import from usa to uk?

 

[beej]

Danny- I understand you want to import a Majesty to save on the costs. But it's awkward to ask for advice on how to do it here, given that this is a company-run forum and you'll basically be circumventing the distribution network they have in place.

 

[dannyc09]

Hi beej,

Im not sure thats a fair assumption to make on the information or questions I have asked.

My thought was to purchase from one of the premier distributors on the list on the EBMM site. However with not doing this before now guaging the rough cost would prevent me from being asked to pay too much from one of those companies without knowing what would be expected. .

If your implying that just because we from the uk should pay only uk prices for the same product, irrespective of the fact that EB would not be suffering any detriment of any worth note, due to the fact its still a sale at market price from one of there distributors, I fail to see why this would be an issue?

I would of thought if EBMM sales were being made from any distribution point this would only be to the benefit of EBMM.

cheers

 

[Kenji20022]

Hi beej,

Im not sure thats a fair assumption to make on the information or questions I have asked.

My thought was to purchase from one of the premier distributors on the list on the EBMM site. However with not doing this before now guaging the rough cost would prevent me from being asked to pay too much from one of those companies without knowing what would be expected. .

If your implying that just because we from the uk should pay only uk prices for the same product, irrespective of the fact that EB would not be suffering any detriment of any worth note, due to the fact its still a sale at market price from one of there distributors, I fail to see why this would be an issue?

I would of thought if EBMM sales were being made from any distribution point this would only be to the benefit of EBMM.

cheers

It's pretty clear that's what you're doing, not a terrible thing by any means everyone likes to save money. But you should understand that the moment you ship this out to the UK, if the worst case scenario happens you're SOL because you'd be paying quite a bit to send it back and get anything repaired ON TOP of the repair costs.

Risky, and not something I would take a chance with. If you're trying to circumvent importing costs and taxes, then that's illegal and they have every right to not allow this stuff to be discussed on their forums.

 

[dannyc09]

Hi kenji,

FYI I have zero intention of circumventing any taxes or VAT on importing the guitar.

I am aware of the issues of warenty on the shipping, was just looking to guage cost of shipping.

Just dont fancy playing over £650 for the same item, as you say nothing wrong with that. Item still purchased through EBMM distributor etc.

Cheers

 

[sixstrings]

Just google it dude. There's an online calculator for import charges from US to UK. Nothing wrong with getting stuff from States, it's cheaper even with all import charges and totally legal if you pay them all in full. I would personally buy from States too, even with warranty issues, it's EBMM after all and their stuff is faultless

 

[dannyc09]

Exactly six strings.

Its 20% VAT + 3.75% duty.

You would think I was trying to smuggle something illegal :-/

 

[beej]

Hi Danny- I'm not judging you for wanting to import something, just saying that's against EBMM's policy. Dealers aren't allowed to sell outside their regions for this reason. For example, a US dealer cannot sell a guitar to someone in the UK directly. If you have a middle man in the US to relay it, you can do it- however the warranty on the guitar would only be covered in the US.

 

[DrKev]

It's not just against EBMM's policy. Virtually none of the major guitar brands allow their dealers in the US to ship overseas. Not just EBMM, but Fender, Gibson, Ibanez, Martin, Taylor and most of the other makers too. Why? Because it circumvents their distribution networks that have been out in place for distribution and customer service. Those brands' presence in other countries loses money and it increases costs in the long run and hurts overseas sales. (Might be good for the Chinese counterfeit business though).

For smaller brands it actually threatens their very presence in other countries.

Think about it - as a store owner how many instruments do you want hanging on a wall that will be tried by a lot of weekend customers who will ulitmately go home and order online from somewhere else and you'll end up selling the guitar for cheap in a years time as a B-stock or ex-demo model.

It short - it is not to anyone's benefit in the long run.

By the way - Remember that import duty and VAT is calculated on the total cost of the guitar PLUS the total cost of the shipping.