Learn from My Shipping Mistakes (So You Don’t Make Them Too) 

15 Jun 2021

Earlier this year I packed up my life of almost 20 years in Japan to return to my home country, Australia. I accumulated a lot during my time in Japan (including a husband and two children), but we weren’t going to ship furniture and planned to significantly downsize for the move, so we didn’t think we needed the services of an international mover like Asian Tigers. How wrong we were!

To cut a long story short, we would have been far better off leaving our move to the experts. 

Despite selling and giving away a huge amount of our possessions, we still ended up with close to 40 boxes to ship – far more than I anticipated. It might sound simple to pack that amount and send things through the post office, but here are some of the challenges we faced:

1. We realised too late some boxes were weak and worried constantly if they would fall apart during transit 

• The durability of packing materials is something professional movers prioritise

2. We packed as carefully as we could but stressed about fragile items, unsure if they were packed well enough 

• The experts are experienced in packing to minimise the risk of damage

3. We couldn’t judge the amount of packing material needed so we kept on running out 

• Professional movers organise all of the packing materials – you don’t need to give it a single thought

4. One item was too large to be sent through the post office so it is still in Japan until we can collect it (no time soon due to pandemic travel restrictions) 

• Door-to-door movers can ship large items as they don’t have the strict weight and size limits you’re faced with when using the post office or couriers 

5. We seriously underestimated how much time it would take (and how stressful it would be!) to pack everything and wasted so much time and energy packing when we could have been enjoying our precious remaining days before moving 

• Professional movers can pack in a fraction of the time it would take you, leaving you with less stress and more time to spend on more important things

6. We didn’t know where we would end up living when we shipped our boxes so sent half to a relative and half to our temporary accommodation. Of course, the boxes started to arrive just as we moved into our long-term accommodation. Despite setting up mail redirection it was a nightmare to sort out the boxes addressed to our temporary accommodation and the logistics of collecting boxes from my relative’s place was another hassle we didn’t need in the middle of moving. 

Your delivery address doesn’t need to be locked in ahead of time with door-to–door movers. When your shipment is ready, the movers will confirm your address and coordinate a suitable time for delivery. 

If I could turn back time, as soon as I knew we were likely to be moving I would contact a respected international mover like Asian Tigers to organise a quote and leave the rest to the experts. The time and stress saved would be priceless.