Hello,
I will be going to Thailand soon and am interested in buying some pieces of furniture over there that I would like to ship home.
Does anybody have any experience with how shipping companies there work and how expensive it would be to send things to Europe?
(BTW, I am not talking about shipping with UPS, Fedex and the likes - I am more interested in "real" shipping companies that handle cargo)
Thanks much!

I used a frieght forwarder at the Weekend Market to ship home some antiques. They went via FedEx air and arrived in less than two weeks. I had the tracking number so could watch it progress from BKK, to Clark, to Anchorage, and so on. Cost less than $200 for about 1 cubic meter BKK-ATL, door-to-door. Got hit by FedEx for about $13 in customs tax and a processing fee, which wasn't bad at all. For surface/ship cargo, fees should be less. Be sure to specify door-to-door to avoid demurrage, forwarding, handling, and inspection charges at your home port and trans-shipment ports, which can be really annoying as you've got to pay whatever they demand because they've got your stuff. Based on that, anyway, don't rule out FedEx.

I'd say most freight forwarders in BKK are going to be fairly legitimate. They are ubiquitous at the Weekend Market. Furniture stores on Suriwongse and Sukhumvit typically have arrangements with a number of forwarders for shipping. I think the volume of cargo leaving Bangkok makes it a relatively cheap city to ship out of.

Hi,

we have tried using our own container and also getting the supplier to use their shipping agents.....

The container idea on paper was cheaper BUT at the end of the day worked out more expensive. Two problems arose, either we didn't have enough to fill it, that incurred another trip and more buying, and then the opposite happened.

The container arrived, all the stock having been paid for, and the cost involved getting it through the Australian docks was outrageous, then we find that key bedroom furniture items were missing. Where were they? The simple answer was "we ran out of space" and then you have to track the product down.

HOWEVER everytime we found a piece we liked, paid for it and had the shop arrange shipment, it arrived hassle free, usually well before we returned. For us it was much easy we knew the total buying price and added a generous profit margin and presto it sold(maybe). This will work if your competitors do not have the same stock.

My advice would be; if you plan to do this on a very regular basis and the bottom line is important, go for the container but ensure all the costs are known before hand otherwise save yourselves a lot of hassles and use your supplier's freight forwarders. regards bkkrop

Maybe have a look, and/or post your inquiry, in the 'business' sub-forum on ThaiVisa (forum.thaivisa.com). This question seems to come up often and there are hundreds of experienced people reading/posting on that forum, who have experience with your market (Europe).

This might be overkill for you, but in my case I've dealt with the Department of Export Promotion through the Ministry of Commerce Royal Thai Government. First of all it's an incredible set up they've got for exporters and assist importers just as much. I stop in their offices every time I am there and will be back there this Sunday.

http://www.thaitrade.com/go/home

They handle all the export out of the country and we have not only the listing of official expoters here in office, but they've also helped in shipping.

On their web site they list freight forwarders here:

http://www.thaitrade.com/40.page

The Thai freight forwarders / shippers is here:

http://www.schednet.com/ASIAINFO/Bangkok.asp

You can google each company or skype them and talk to them etc...

You can also search their site for furniture export companies if you want. Or go to the OTOP shops to see if you can pick up anything good depending on your qty of what you want.

The positive thing about going with a company listed under the government export promotion department is you've got a way to file a complaint if you run into issues. I've found the Department of Export Promotion to provide excellent services.