March 2009
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WelcomeWelcome to CCL’s March 2009 newsletter. In this issue we’re highlighting our ERTS bonded warehouse and break bulk services, plus answering more of your general queries. There’s a Coffee Break Story too, of course, to put the froth on your cappuccino.
We’re just back from the Triangle World Mail and Express Americas Conference and Exhibition in Miami. You can see Rudee in the photo with customers Jeff Taylor of Intermec (www.intermec.com) and Gary Tervit of Parcel Force (www.parcelforce.com). We also ran into Russell Crockford of Mail Africa Limited (www.mailafrica.co.za). Russell tells us he is another avid reader of our newsletter! The delegates at this lively event in sunny Miami were largely decision-makers, corporate leaders and department heads and as a result it was a very busy show for Customs Clearance Ltd. We had the opportunity to meet several prospects and customers, and their customers too and held several one-to-one meetings both at the show and after hours. Now that we’ve been taking booths at the industry trade shows for a while, we’re finding that people are asking us where we’ll be and are bringing their own customers to network with us and learn how we add value to their offering. Coming up very soon, from 22-26 March in fact, is the WWPC Annual Conference which is taking place in the Dominican Republic. We’ll be there, and as always, would be delighted to meet up with you. So if you are attending, drop us a line! Come and find us too in the Far East, in May. We’ll be in Hong Kong on Stand No 2055 at the Courier & Parcel Logistics Expo Asia from 19-21 May. Let us know if you plan to attend. We recently created a short presentation outlining our services – what we do and how we add value. You can find a downloadable pdf version on the CCL web site. Do click through and take a look. We mentioned this last month, but in case you missed it, if you’ve ever considered branching out, we have an opportunity we’d like to discuss with you. Check out our web site here, then call Rudee or Brian for a confidential chat. Enjoy the rest of this issue and don’t forget, for any customs and importation queries, make our friendly and approachable Customer Services team on +44 (0)20 8231 0900 your first port of call. In this issueWarehousing and Break Bulk - How it can work for you Warehousing and Break Bulk - How it can work for youWhere customs clearance is our core activity, we provide other value-added services to assist and support our customers. One of these is our ERTS bonded warehouse. This is where we can store your consolidated shipments, handle the customs clearance, break your shipments down into individual consignments and onward ship to multiple destinations. In the last few months a multitude of products have passed through our warehouse, including clothing, books, magazines, footwear, electronics, CDs and DVDs, pharmaceutical products, china and giftware and personal/household effects. But how does break-bulk work, and in what ways could it be useful to you? It works like this: As a freight forwarder you will manage a single consolidated consignment into the UK/Europe on one Master Air Waybill (MAWB). Let’s say this is a consignment comprising 100 pieces and weighing 700 kilos, and it contains smaller consignments for 7 individual recipients. These smaller consignments will each be accounted for by House Air Waybills (HAWBs). Customs Clearance Limited will take control of the MAWB and move the entire shipment to our ERTS bonded warehouse. Then we break the master into its 7 HAWB components. Once cleared, we then handle distribution of each individual consignment to its final destination. As a freight forwarder, you gain many advantages from utilising our warehousing and break-bulk process:
Q&A - Everything you wanted to know about importing, but were afraid to ask!Here’s the spot where we answer in brief one or two of your more specific customs and importation questions. Q: I'd like to purchase a Harley Davidson engine from the USA and have it delivered to Heathrow. Can you act as Customs agent? A: Yes, we can act as your agent to Custom clear this shipment. In order to quote accurately we need to know the volume weight of the shipment and whether it is a new or a used engine – and if used, what age is it. We can also deliver to your final destination and for us to quote for this, we will need the final destination address. Q: I am shipping household goods and personal effects from Canada, back to the UK, which will require customs clearance. What do I need to do? A: If you have not already arranged for shipment, we can do this for you. For this we will need to know your required timescale (so that we can quote for air or sea shipment as appropriate) and if sea freight is needed, the dimensions of your shipment, so that we can assess the container requirements. We can clear your shipment/container and deliver it to your ultimate destination, ie, your home address in the UK. To do this, we will need a complete inventory of contents. Note that to qualify as ‘personal effects’, your goods must be at least 6 months old, otherwise they will be classified as ‘merchandise’. We will send you the necessary documentation for completion in advance, to speed up the process. Q: How do I import a piece of medical equipment from China? A: We can handle shipments of medical or any other equipment through any UK port or airport, into the UK and Europe. Even if the shipment is bound for mainland Europe, we can clear it through a UK port and deliver to anywhere in Europe. We will need to know exactly what the equipment is, and what it will be used for. We need to know where it is coming from, and to where it is being delivered. You will need to tell us the value of the equipment, and how many pieces there are, with weight and dimensions. We will also need to know whether it is in any way fragile or hazardous. In order that we can quote you accurately, you will also need to advise what shipment/turnaround time is needed and whether this will be a one-off or regular shipment. Coffee Break Story: Red Faces in AmsterdamHere’s another of our ‘coffee break’ stories for your time-out time. Enjoy! I flew out yesterday evening, Heathrow to Amsterdam. I thought I’d have a day or so to enjoy myself before the trade show opened. It’s at the Rai, and I’m fixed up with a hotel in the centre of the city, so I had hoped for a little R&R whilst the stand constructors did their job – just popping in once or twice to see how they were doing. Oh, how wrong can you be?! I got out for the one evening, that’s all, before the fun started. I found a little restaurant by the canals and as it was pretty mild for September I even got myself an outside table and I sat there, watching the world go by and drinking one beer too many. But I didn’t lose my head. I know after dark all those girls come out and sit in the windows down by the canals, but I kept my hand on my wallet and my eyes on the pavement and I made it safely back to my hotel without weakening, for an early night, all by myself. I’m glad I did too, because when the phone rang at 7.00am the next morning, I was already awake. It was Joe, my stand builder. He was already at the Rai, getting the crates, which had arrived overnight from Boston, signed-in and opened. We’d taken a leap of faith and booked big, huge, central stands for our three shows this year. To fill them, we were borrowing a two-story construction from our US parent company, complete with upstairs meeting zone, downstairs presentation area and no less than 3 plasmas built into the walls. We’d already used it earlier in the year at the NEC and it had worked out quite well. People were drawing positive messages from our big, loud-and-proud presence at these shows and we were doing good business. Anyhow, back to the call. I was cleaning my teeth and only half listening – it was a bit early to be getting on to me, after all – but I heard his words clearly enough. Of our 27 crates, it seems that only 24 of them had actually arrived. The three missing ones contained a rather critical partition wall, the stairs to the upper level and two of the plasma screens. First there’s a low buzzing sound in my ears.... Now all the alarm bells are going off in my head. My heart is racing and the toothbrush is on the floor. I spell out the problem to myself.... The show opens tomorrow, and we’re missing walls, stairs and screens – that means we’ll be standing in a bomb-site with a box full of brochures. I was seeing black blotches in my eyes, and my skin was suddenly prickly with pins-and-needles. It’s all in your head, breathe slowly, just like the doctor said. Sit down, close your eyes, and breathe slowly. It wasn’t working. Never mind stress, I was close to freaking out. Sightseeing is suddenly off the agenda – that’ll teach me to try and skive for a few hours. I’m thinking maybe by this evening I won’t even have a job. It was me, after all, who had suggested we ship the US show stand around the world, and me who said it would be ‘no problem’ moving it around. I realised I didn’t even know where the missing crates were. Round the back of the Rai? At Schipol Airport? Still in Boston? I headed for the exhibition hall in a cold sweat; a condemned man, on his way to the gallows. By the time I got there, having had my phone glued to my ear for a half-hour, I’d discovered the crates were in the worst possible place, back at base – Boston, Massachusetts. I’d got the shipping clerk out of bed in the small hours (if I’m going to suffer, so is she), and given her a real hard time. But even then I’d held back a bit. I felt like screaming down the phone, ‘Those darn crates are no good to me now! You can throw them all in the sea for all I care. You guys in Boston know how to do that, right?!’ But I knew I might still need her help, and even though I may be about to be fired, I don’t want to end up getting sued as well. I just didn’t know if we could fix things on time. I remember getting a bit cute with the management-speak with Joe once. He took it on the chin, but I squirm when I remember what I said – it was fresh out of the happy-clappy text books: “don’t ever come to me with a problem, Joe, come with the solution too”... It appears he must have forgiven me though, because this morning, he’d made my problem into his problem, and he’d come up with a solution. It seems he knew this guy back in the UK, who worked in customs clearance. They had connections all over the world and could organise shipment of the missing crates in double-quick time, even out-of-hours in Boston. I only needed the shipping clerk to get herself to the office and wait for the freight forwarder. Surely she could do that part right. The guys at Customs Clearance Ltd would see to everything else... paperwork, transportation, clearance out of Boston and into Europe and delivery to the Rai. They said they could get the crates on a plane to the UK within a couple of hours and then cleared and shipped on to Amsterdam. They wouldn’t be here until around 2am tomorrow, but Joe said he’d work through the night and the show management agreed to keep the place open for us – for a fee of course. But that was still better than the alternative. So, I know you want to know, did we manage it? Well I have to admit, it was a bit of a photo finish. I’ve been involved in last-minute hammering and nailing before, but never quite like this. But yes, we did it - just. We had literally minutes to spare, but as the sales guys sauntered in, off their early morning shuttle, we were testing the plasmas, and when everything fired-up first time, I heaved a huge sigh of relief. Joe and his mates at Customs Clearance Ltd did me a real biggie that day, that’s for sure. |
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| Customs Clearance Limited | |
18th Mar 2009
