Help! - Posting a guitar to Germany for a resonable fee!

Fuengi

I've got a ticking offer from Germany for a guitar but looks like I have undervalued the cost of delivery whic is coming in at £75 from DHL.

Can anyone help point my in the right diection or is this the standard cost?

BeardyAndy

I sent something to poland the other day and I think DHL came out cheapest for that, have a look on all the broker websites as they differ greatly. Parcel Monkey, SenditNow and Parcel2Go are what i use.

CMW335

Sent a 335 to Germany recently for £15 via parcel2go.

Thats uninsured however, assume your quote is with insurance?

RaymondLin

CMW335 said:

Sent a 335 to Germany recently for £15 via parcel2go.

Thats uninsured however, assume your quote is with insurance?

That's brave, sending a guitar uninsurance, a Gibson at that.

CMW335

@RaymondLin done it many times both in and out for high value guitars. Most policies only cover upto £1k for guitars these days and will even take your money for insurance while at the the same time having guitars on their prohibited list. So you are forking our for a policy that won’t pay out in event of a claim.

Fuengi

CMW335 said:

Sent a 335 to Germany recently for £15 via parcel2go.

Thats uninsured however, assume your quote is with insurance?

I'll need it insured for £1k.

CMW335

@Fuengi Make sure you are definitely covered. Also if the guitars damaged for example a broken neck you will have a fight on your hands to get anything more than cost of repair and your shipping cost back regardless of the guitar being worth much less with a repair. Sorry if it sounds like scaremongering, as I say many high value guitars have gone in and out and no issues but it’s good to know what to expect in reality from the insurance cover.

BeardyAndy

Fuengi said:

CMW335 said:

Sent a 335 to Germany recently for £15 via parcel2go.

Thats uninsured however, assume your quote is with insurance?

I'll need it insured for £1k.

Thats the trouble, a lot of them will carry but not cover guitars. Have you spoken to the buyer and said that you need an extra 50 to cover carriage? If its a high price guitar surely they'd be happier it arrive in 1 piece.

Fuengi

BeardyAndy said:

Fuengi said:

CMW335 said:

Sent a 335 to Germany recently for £15 via parcel2go.

Thats uninsured however, assume your quote is with insurance?

I'll need it insured for £1k.

Thats the trouble, a lot of them will carry but not cover guitars. Have you spoken to the buyer and said that you need an extra 50 to cover carriage? If its a high price guitar surely they'd be happier it arrive in 1 piece.

That's exactly what I've done, no point risking it. 

skullfunkerry

I sent a Steinberger Synapse to Belgium a few years ago and used p4d to find the cheapest quote. Can't remember which carrier it was now but I think it was around £70 insured

Adey

Just because it insured doesn't mean that they look after it more carefully when in transit. It will get the same abuse, and if damaged they will do their best to avoid paying out because you "hadn't packed it well enough".

You'd  do better packing it well enough to be thrown around and driven over, and save paying "insurance for nothing" in my experience.

:-)

Modellista

Interparcel do I think specify exactly how to ship a guitar - in a proper hard case and a box on the outside.  That's the only sensible anyway for a higher value guitar, particularly a Gibson.

They'll insure for loss up to £1k.

I have shipped a few things to Europe and they have arrived eventually, but it can take weeks in some cases.  It is a bit of a stress overall.

Treewig1

I went insured to Spain with UPS and it worked out very well.  Good price, good tracking, quick delivery

Adey

Modiellista said:

I have shipped a few things to Europe and they have arrived eventually, but it can take weeks in some cases.  It is a bit of a stress overall.

I'm waiting for a guitar to arrive from Denmark at the moment. It has taken two weeks so far and no sign of it!

It was sent with "economy" posting which I gather means that it gets very few scans on its journey, so impossible to find out where it's got to.

:-(

p90fool

Go direct to UPS not via a broker website and you'll get full insurance. You can even talk to a human about it in advance. 

bloomer

I've gone direct through UPS for the last two guitars I shipped. They were by far the cheapest, around £35 to ship next day in the UK compared to around £65 when I tried going through the brokers. This was with £1000 cover for loss.

Be aware though that tucked away in the small print it said that they only cover up to £100 damages.

I think it's incredibly cheeky for any courier to charge you insurance for loss, the whole job is taking an item from one place to another and making sure it gets there. It's a bit like paying 'protection'.

They should at least publish figures on what their rate of loss in the network is.

phil_b

Modellista

^ Hah.  As if.

Adey

bloomer said:

I think it's incredibly cheeky for any courier to charge you insurance for loss, the whole job is taking an item from one place to another and making sure it gets there. It's a bit like paying 'protection'.

They should at least publish figures on what their rate of loss in the network is.

I completely agree. The person actually benefiting from the insurance is the carrier. It is there to allow them to mal-handle your parcel and charge you to cover the cost to resolve any damages (if indeed the small print doesn't actually prevent it!).

It smacks of a scam to me.

They definitely should have to publish their figures on how many parcels they damage.

Fuengi

It's £90 on UPS although I'm unable to actually book that online (phone quote, online it comes out at £135) or Parcelforce come in at £107 with a friendly till lady who put a discount in for me.

Might just post it uninsured.