Ex Bibliotheca

The life and times of Zack Weinberg.

Sunday, 1 September 2002

# 5:25 PM

Maersk Sealand, a huge shipping conglomerate, has put online all their schedules and rates; you can book yourself a cargo shipment from just about anywhere to anywhere else. Well, you can if you know what you're doing. I tried to get a rate quote out of them and was faced with questions like "Do any Shippers Export Declarations apply? Choose [none] [1] [2] ... [10]" with no explanation of what Shippers Export Declarations 1 through 10 might be, but a strong implication that answering incorrectly could get you in legal trouble.

Sending a single 20-foot container from the USA to Hong Kong will run you about $3000. Sending more appears to be an additional $2000 per container, but I could have gotten confused.