This is where most of the help came from r2iClubForum - thanks R2I. R2I folks like us have shared a great deal of details there and every bit helped. We called several shippers - Universal, sky2c, air7seas being the few. The documents they sent across which had details on the process helped quite a bit - when you don't know the difference between FCL and LCL, you have to start from somewhere! Needless to say, our initial estimate and what we finally shipped were miles apart but getting idea on how much approximately we would pay helped in deciding what to keep versus what to dispose off.
Like everybody else, we thought FCL would work very well, if we can share with somebody. However, plans change and making it work all the way is a challenge. Unless you know for sure that your partner is going to stay with you all the way, don't plan to share.
2 challenges here:
1) You don't know the exact volume until the last few days. With FCL, you need to stick to roughly 500 c. feet. With LCL, you go buy your individual volume and there is no limit on how much you can ship. What if your volume is more than 500 c. feet or your partner's volume is more than 500 c. feet. You always have the option of doing LCL on remaining volume but you will need to work closely with your partner to make sure you split evenly.
2) With LCL, you know that you paying for what volume you are using. Hence, you try to cut down as much as possible and ship only what you need. Trust me - you want to keep everything you have and it is not easy to let go, especially when you know that selling won't get you much and you are already used to those items.
Finally, we picked sky2c. For several reasons - several of my friends had used them and had good feedback, they had a office close to where I lived, when I called them, I did prompt responses and they were communicating etc. Initially, we went for FCL since one of our friend's were planning to move as well but they had to drop out and sky2c was able to move us to LCL.
Appreciate your feedback and comments, please leave a comment if you found this post useful (or not!) ...
