Regular readers of the blog will know that last December Dan’s partner visa for Australia was finally approved and if you follow us on Instagram you’ll know that we left the UK two weeks ago after living there for the past two years. We live and breathe all things travel and whilst we travelled quite regularly and extensively during our time in England there was still so much left that I wanted to see before we moved across the world! We decided we’d travel for just over three months, a trip which totalled 100 days where we started in Portugal and will finish in Greece. It would be impossible for us to travel with all our belongings and I certainly didn’t want to just throw out everything we’ve accumulated over the past two years (although Dan made me cull a lot)! We decided we’d look into either shipping our belongings or sending them with a courier company back to Australia and after a lot of extensive research we came across Shiply who are an excellent, innovative company who met all our requirements!
Shiply were founded in 2008 and are a company that matches people needing to move goods with transport companies going to the same destination anyway. We were shocked when we learnt that over 25% of lorries run completely empty of cargo and over 50% run only part full! Shiply enables the consumers and businesses to work together to make use of this spare capacity whilst also dramatically cutting down on CO2 emissions, increasing the profitability of transport companies and saving the consumer up to 75%.
We found the process super easy and user friendly and all we had to do was write a basic description of our product, collection and delivery addresses and post the job on Shiply which is free to do and there is no obligation to book anything if none of them meet your requirements. Within a few hours the quotes started piling in from transport companies and we could review their customer feedback (which was very similar to eBay), ask questions and double check any details before booking the job. We received 8 quotes in just over a day and I couldn’t believe how reasonably priced some of them were compared to booking through other courier companies I’d researched. We chose our transport provider, paid the fee, arranged the collection from Dan’s work in a few days time and within a few hours were sent all the necessary paperwork for labelling and customs.
In less than a week after sending our precious belongings I had a call from my mum to say our boxes had arrived in Australia! I will admit I am slightly a control freak and so anything out of my control does raise my stress levels and so whilst the chances of anything bad happening to our things was very small I was still worried until I had that call.
We wanted to share our excellent experience with Shiply to all of our friends, family and readers who may be requiring the services of a courier or delivery company in the future to send belongings abroad when moving or to send gifts to family or friends overseas. From the moment we posted our delivery request to Shiply’s website and the quotes began flowing in we had the whole process booked and confirmed within a few days! I was very impressed with the service, process and also the extensive amount of positive reviews that I’d read online when I was choosing a courier company.
Moving overseas is a very stressful experience, especially towards the end and we were so grateful to Shiply for making that big aspect of our move simple and stress free. We’d highly recommend them to anyone looking to send their precious belongings abroad as our experience was so excellent! We’ve just had the most fantastic two weeks in Portugal and have just arrived in Barcelona and by the time we arrive back to Australia in three months time we’ll be excited to sort through all our possessions which are sitting safe & sound waiting for us in Australia!
If you need to use any of Shiply’s services be sure to check our their website: www.shiply.com
Have you ever moved abroad? Let us know about your experiences? x
