Delivery of shipped goods ...

Items were not shipped the same day as customs. They arrived the next day. Many of the apartments have timing restrictions on when delivery can happen (usually until 6 or 7PM in the evening). Shippers arrived by 3pm or so. Fortunately, apartments have a service elevator as well, which can fit larger items like sofas.
           
We had some climax as well - the elevator got stuck with shippers inside in it and wouldn't open. Fortunately, there was small opening and we could talk thru'. Elevator service person was called since the apartment electricians couldn't do much. We had a sinking feeling - after everything went well over few months, the folks are stuck in the elevator with items!! Fortunately, before the elevator person could reach, they were able to climb up and reset the elevator- for some reason, it had tripped and door got jammed. They were free in 30 mins or so and all the items were home safe. They did some of the unpacking of big items like TV, removed packing from sofas etc and boxes were stacked. Not surprisingly, one bedroom was full with stacked boxes!!!   

The detailed packing list helped every bit. At least we could access the items we badly needed and start using them immediately. others could wait.


As I mentioned earlier, our shipper was sky2c. Total cost we paid for the shipping (door to door, custom excluded): ~ $5500. This was for approx. 650 cubic. feet. On the top of this we paid, approx Rs. 8000 in customs. 




Appreciate your feedback and comments, please leave a comment if you found this post useful (or not!) ...

Shipped items/customs ...

Was finally glad to see an e-mail from sky2c, even though it gave us 2 day notice to head for customs at Whitefield location. Sky2C advised us to be there at 9:30am - thought it was going to be a challenge to reach there by 9:30am with the ITPL traffic. Even with the car, I knew there will be the overhead of finding the location, parking etc.

Left HSR layout at 8:15am - fortunately took the Varthur road, which goes to Kadugodi, where traffic was light after getting out of ring road. The location is right next to ITPL - a block down the road. You see a big board with CONCAR. There is a road right in-front of that board (there are 2 roads next to each other and you need to take the one right in-front of the board). You get this board as soon as you cross ITPL entry (when you are coming from Big Bazzar side).
                       
Once I got into sky2c office, there was some paper work -  handed over copies of US passports, OCI card, Indian passport etc + few signatures. A total of 10 mins of work and then wait until 10am for customs office to open. Along with Sky2C person, walked down to the customs place, crossing the container yard. Again, wait a bit more and the customs lady showed up and went thru' the packing list.
           
This is where I thought sky2c could have given better information - I provided the personal packing list, which was too detailed (as a reference list of our use). I could have possibly produced a shorter list which could have contained only the Electronics items I want to declare. Focus of customs folks is on Electronics items since rest of the used cloths, furniture, toys etc come under Transfer of Residence (TR). Electronics items do get duty - even if that second DVD player is a 10 year old one, it still gets higher duty. So, better to get a singe good DVD player and dump those old ones in US itself.
           
Customs person asked the helpers over there to open 10 to 15 boxes - many of the items we had were self visible like sofas, mattresses, computer table, digital keyboard, TV etc. One advise -- never leave the empty packing of items like iPAD, iPhone etc - they get their attention and they have to open up each one to make sure the actual items are not there. It is better to dump those boxes and carry these items personally when flying.
 

Using the packing list and the opened boxes, customs person came up with a number for the duty, which seemed pretty high in my case. After a bit of discussion about the items being used, it was reduced by a good amount. I did have the receipts for most of the items but not sure how much that would have helped - my Dell computer's vale was $3000 when I bought and now it would be $500 :-). But, safer to carry receipts anyway - they might help to prove that these are used items and establish the age of items.

           
Good thing I followed the timing given by sky2c -- I was there at 9:30am, was the first to get customs done and all done by 12 noon :-). sky2c said they would do the remaining paper work, using the original passport and the customs money that was already paid.

CONCAR Shipping Yard with containers stacked up

One more CONCAR pic..

Appreciate your feedback and comments, please leave a comment if you found this post useful (or not!) ...