Starter Kit. Idea 496 of 500. Cluster 28
Shipping and customs clearance for a household coming home, from the packing abroad to the door at home
The mechanism, from the book
The first one through pays the whole price, and everyone after walks through an open door. These are the doors.
The first step
Ask 5 families who came home in the last 2 years what moving their household involved, how long the goods sat at the port, and what went wrong at customs. Turn their answers into one checklist from packing to the door. Then find a shipping agent abroad and a licensed clearing agent here who will work together, and offer to manage one family's move for a fee. A family whose goods arrive on the day promised is the proof.
- Who pays first
- A family abroad planning to come home, who dread the port and the paperwork and will pay one person to handle it from start to finish.
- What leaves today
- A move that goes wrong at the port makes the first months at home miserable, and the family that suffers it warns everyone else to stay away.
Ask first
- Sri Lanka Customs. Ask what a returning family must declare, and which belongings can come in without duty.
- Sri Lanka Ports Authority. Ask how a household container is released at the port and how long it takes.
Check before you spend
That you work with a licensed customs agent, insurance for the household's goods from door to door, and a written price that includes every port charge.
Find out these three numbers
- What does a family pay now to ship a household home?
- How many families in one city abroad plan to return this year?
- What does a licensed agent charge to clear one container?
A comparison from the book
Going first. Appendix
"the first one through pays the whole price, and everyone after walks through"
Sell the open door. The family pays a fee instead of the whole price of going first.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.