Buying Furniture and shipping to US

mriduus@yahoo.com

Hello friends

Have not posted in a while. The family and I have a nice flat we stay at in Delhi but as the cold hits I am inclined to want the matresses off our nice flat's nice cold stone floors. Please advice me if you have bought beds in Delhi or know any good outlets or manufacturers that I can buy from. I would love to have a bed made. I had a dining table and 8 chairs made, a copy of a Stickley type design that I pulled off the web for about Rs20,ooo total. I was delighted with the results but for various reasons cannot go back to the furniture maker with a commission for a bed. I would love to have bed made per my specefications. But if there is a good quality, fair price furniture store please direct me to that. Aytime I venture out to search for furniture I find myself wading through such ugly collections and pushy sales pitches - its just been a blind search. Pleeeease help!

Also when we leave here in a few years how much should we expect to spend to ship it to US/westcoast?

Thanks as always
Mridu

TYP0

I found some nice stuff on jail road. Since its not a place expats flock to the prices weren't too high. Several of the places we visited there were willing to do custom pieces. The shops aren't pretty store fronts like you find in many of the expat-centric areas but don't let appearances fool you. They do great work! I think the name of the place my friend got her stuff was "The Blue Hut."

Good luck!

cyberhippie

Sorry I can't locate the street name but there are scores of furniture makers on the main road at the far end of the Paharganj, Main Bazaar, the opposite end from the New Delhi Railway Station turn left and there's are furniture makers lining both sides of the road!!
Some very nice stuff on display, so I think they are good craftsmen!!

Maybe a Delhi Wallah can supply the name of the road!!

jyotirmoy

There are rows of shops as cyberhippy rightly recalls, the road is called Panchquia road. But you must chekout the quality of wood & workmanship. If you have the money visit a Durian outlet. Bhutan boards makers of hardened ply boards used to sell kits. You needed basic tools like screw drivers to assemble the furniture.
Hope it helps.

RidaR

I too am interested in buying some pieces in India and having them shipping back to the DC area. The problem is I'll only be in Delhi for 4-5 days. If I'm able to pick out a piece I like, is that enough time to arrange for it's shipping back to the East coast? Or will most dealers arrange shipping themselves (is that a good idea???) And how much should I expect to pay for that?

curtdfw

You might try Sharma Farm in Chhatarpur, between South Delhi & Gurgaon. Even if you don't buy it's an amazing experience. It's used, reproduction and antique stuff in a bunch of massive sheds. You can get incredibly cool stuff there, from Raj era to Art Deco furniture, camel saddles, ceramic and wooden bowls. You can also get fleeced if you don't know what you're doing -- they make some of the 'new' antiques on site. I've seen US folks buy container-loads at the place, and it's popular with the Diplomatic crowd. They can package for export and arrange shipping, though I have no idea about pricing.

I've bought a number of things there, including a 4.5 X 9 foot solid teak dining table that weighs at least 200 lbs. I generally had my Indian wife and sister-in-law handle the negotiations to minimize the gora tax, though it probably didn't help much once they saw me...

To get there:

The Chhatarpur road is an east turn off the Mehrauli-Gurgaon road. Once on it, go past the temples and through the village for about 2 km (from MG Road), where the terrain will be mostly fields. Look for a wall on the right and gate just past a row of poplars (or trees similar to them). Turn in, honk, and a guard will open the gate. It's also the entrance to the residence of the Ecuadoran (?) ambassador, and there used to be a sign to that effect on the gate. On Google Earth, it's at 28°29'21.62"N X 77°11'1.82"E

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camelgirl

Ridar I thought the days of shipping things from India to the U.S. for a reasonable price were long gone.

Someone will correct me if I'm wrong

Shipping anything is now a huge hassle. The last thing we shipped from India was a 40 lb. wooden Ganesh. The price was right, the shipping was by sea & a fair price-- I think it was about $200 with the shipping. The big problem came when it got here. By sea it comes into a container port. You cannot just go pick up things. They have to be handled by special port agents who do all the paperwork, arrange for the unloading, uncrating. By the time we finally paid all the extra port fees, having nothing to do with India, Ganesh was over $400. We love him but weren't expecting all the port fees. (nothing extra for art/crafts) And if you don't pick it up or pay someone lots of money to bring it to you, they start charging daily holding fees, back then about $75 a day.

I was told that shipping by air is much more expensive but you don't have any of the extra port charges, which makes it cheaper in the end.

Also, a gazillion years ago we shipped home a whole room of rattan furniture for next to nothing from Thailand. Also, not possible anymore. Same port fees, etc.

People talk about container shipping. Don't know anything about it but I'll bet if it comes by sea, you will be killed with charges here in the U.S.

That's my probably out-of-date information. I wouldn't buy anything big to ship from India anymore. They do not tell you, because they probably don't know, how much it will cost you to actually get it into the U.S.

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curtdfw

Yeah, container stuff is expensive -- a dedicated 20'x8'x8' container door-to-door (meaning to your street address, not to the port of entry) would probably run USD$5000 from Delhi to Dallas. That said, a local consolidator that collects smaller lots and combines them into a container, would charge much less for smaller quantities.

Even if the pricing is off-putting, do go by Sharma Farm for an outing -- it really is a spectacle. I go there every visit, and fantasize about buying an 8-meter Kerala canoe, some of those massive door sets from old buildings, or 8-lakh Raj-era bedroom sets with canopied 4-posters that make king-size beds look small...

camelgirl

Maybe it's good that it's expensive to get home because I want all that stuff also--not the canoe

Next time I'm in Delhi I'll have to check out that place!

I think for people who have businesses, like Indian Restaurants who get big decorations, and regular importers, it's a whole different game. They've got their own port people, shippers, their tax IDs, it's a business expense, etc.

curtdfw

And that $5000 price was for our stuff that's still sitting in Delhi storage. It's only about half a container, and so we're considering splurging on filling the other half with (hopefully) US-salable stuff to defray the costs of getting our own goods here. I should add that the price above included export packaging and the whole door-to-door service. Money could be saved if one is near a port city and could avoid the freight charges for port-to-doorstep services.

RidaR

WOW! Thanks for the great (although disappointing) information! I think that's just too expensive for me to bring some pieces over.

I'm wondering if a container would be necessary in the end anyways...I'm actually look for wedding decor pieces ('jhulas' and backdrops and seating) and most of that stuff tends to be collapsible and/or de-assembled. So maybe I can just fly it over or UPS it over...

I'll be sure to check out the Sharma Farm - sounds amazing!

Thanks for everything!

camelgirl

Ridar, it might be cheaper (though expensive) to buy it in the U.S. when you add on the shipping & other charges.

Curt Is there any way you can find out the "import" charges. All those port agents handling fees I'm talking about. Maybe there is a U.S.Govt. website This is all I could find but it does show everything I talked about (all the fees that have nothing to do with India & shipping charges). Just be prepared!! Apparently, some places have agents in the U.S. (I'm thinking this would only be people who deal with businesses). Otherwise, you have to deal with the it. I happened to have lived 20 minutes from Port Newark & didn't need the extra "freight forwarding" to somewhere else. I also was sent all the paperwork from some agent at the port--with their huge bill. All this is because I'm not a business, just an independant traveler who sent home Ganesh!

http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/travel/va...send_to_us.xml This says you can find agents in the phone book so maybe you can find out what they will charge you to process your shipment.

namaste_cat

RidaR, I'm w/ camelgirl. Found it too cost-prohibitive to ship things from India. A container might be a different idea though, and doable.

One of the many wonderful things about the U.S. is how easy it is to find stuff from all over the world. And honestly w/ shopping around, the prices are often quite competitve w/ India's. True, some pieces are hard to find, but for the most part, other than small things I can fit in my suitcase, I buy even "ethnic" stuff e.g. Indian/Rajasthani doors, furnitute, jaali work etc in the U.S. A few years ago, I scored some really cool pieces on craigslist for a fraction of what it could have cost me even in India.

curtdfw

Import charges are a bucketful of fees by the brokerage that processes the shipment into the US, duty amount (which varies by commodity) and other charges. Documentation fees will probably vary by the complexity of the shipment -- a variety of items with different duty amounts will probably cost more than the same volume of a single item. Import duties should be findable on the web

There are lots of companies that will do 'one-stop-shopping' for all these services and, unless you're already knowledgeable about the details, it probably makes more sense to use them. Our quote was from a company called Writer Corporation, who we used for shifting from Delhi to Bangalore and back to Delhi, and who are also storing our stuff. They've been overall good to work with, so we're probably going with them instead of an unknown outfit.

curtdfw

There's plenty of Indian stuff on ebay, though some of it is clearly newly produced crap (the 'antique' kama sutra erotic art door panels, for instance). World Market has quite a bit of wood articles made of 'exotic' sheesham for decent prices. Though it may not have the same emotional content as something picked up in your travels, it can help to recreate the feel of your time there.