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How are new models and modeling supplies shipped to the US?


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I've often thought about this and while I've searched some, I haven't found the specific answer I was looking for.  

 

I've long been fascinated with several aspects of modern society, including how commodities get from one part of the world to another.  I have watched with great interest some of the shows that include how outfits such as FedEx or UPS provide their expedited, overnight shipping services, and the logistics involved.  I have also wondered how small items, such as our model kits, and even smaller items such as modeling supplies (paints, glues, model tools, etc.) are shipped to the US from their mostly Asian, but sometimes European, manufacturing locations.  

 

I am aware that most items from Asia make it to America in those huge containers, similar to railroad boxcars in size/volume, on the decks of monstrously huge container ships.  However,  I've wondered, specifically, about how a given model makes it over here.  I assume that most kits are shipped in large boxes, containing hundreds of kits, strapped onto pallets, which are then loaded inside the huge shipping containers and then onto container ships.  Is that accurate?  What about things like the tiny bottles of paint?  Obviously, those types of items must be packed into huge amounts of the same thing, that is thousands of bottles of paints into a much larger container.  Also accurate?  How many model kits, or how many bottles of paint, get shipped at a time, and how much space do they take up?  

 

I continue to be interested in volume of items.  How many model kits are typically shipped in a single shipment to the US?  Are we talking multiple thousands of kits in a single container?  Or is that too many, and are they shipped, more typically, numbered in the hundreds of kits, or is even that too many?  How many paint bottles are shipped at a time?  I don't know why this interests me, but it does.  Does anyone know the answer to these goofy questions...or are these things closely guarded secrets by the model industry giants?  

 

If anyone knows where an answer already resides, please send me a link.  Thanks in advance for providing answers to questions developed by the wild gyrations of a rapidly failing mind 😋

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Not sure how the companies do it, but I have a friend locally that has shipped many large items to Africa to an orphanage/school he has helped fund.  He either rents or buys an overseas container and then shows up at the dock location that rents them.  They get it to the ship from there.  He ships out of the port of Savannah GA.  Once it Africa, the school shows up at the dock and they unload and transport items to the school.  

He has purchased a container and they delivered it direct to the orphanage with transportation fees of course.   He did send a school bus a few months back.  Too big for a container, so the simply loaded it up on the ship and strapped it to the top of one of the containers. 

He’s sent a few cars and trucks in addition to the bus.   They really pack those containers tight too.  Empty space is wasted money.  

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Thanks, guys.  @southwestforests, you, know, I kind of figured that that would be the case, that companies don't say much about their supply chains, because if they did, competitors could pick that apart and gain an advantage.  However, regardless of whether we can actually learn how this happens or not, it still fascinates me.  In particular, the model industry seems like such a niche market, that it makes their shipping even more interesting.  It's not hard to figure out how certain large scale commodities get shipped, things made in Asia and sold in every store in America.  Those, I am sure, are shipped in containers full of that item.  It's our little corner of the world that fascinates me.

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It really depends on who it is.
For instance Games Workshop mostly shoot their models in the UK, however some of them are shot in China and then those plastic sprues are shipped to the UK where they are packaged up and then sold.

So in this example it really depends on what model you are talking about as to how it starts as little pellets of plastic and ends up on the shelf of a model store with a price tag on it.

 

Even something as simple as a pot of Tamiya paint changes depending on who orders it.
A UK importer could buy it direct from Tamiya in Japan who will send it out as part of a much larger order, in the intermodal container is one order, or it could be several orders that are to end up with different distributers so where the consignment goes once it arrives in the UK really depends on who orders it.

Hobbyco are the only OFFICIAL UK Tamiya distributer in the UK but Hobbyco isnt the only way to get Tamiya products into this country.

 

Hobbyco place an order with Tamiya. The products range from 1:32 scale F-4C/D kits to hundreds of pots of paint, R/C models, tools etc etc etc.

Tamiya will fulfil the order, this might be the complete order or part of the order.
Part orders are only sent really so the container doesnt miss its slot of the stack on the ship.

If your container isnt on the dock when it needs to be loaded, and containers are loaded in a pre arranged order so they dont have to swap containers in and out when they arrive at port, then it doesnt get loaded and your consignment has to be rebooked.

 

So now a container full of Tamiya products is on its way to the UK.

 

It will get off loaded in the UK. What happens next depends on what port it comes into.

If it arrives are the best port for your location then a truck will bring it to your places of business if you arrange a truck, otherwise the shipping agent will wait for it to be collected from the port by some means, be that by a truck who just takes the whole thing away or a man in a van who takes all the models out of the container and drives away with them.

With Hobbyco Im not 100% sure what they do, I would imagine they have a distribution hub that can deal with containerised freight deliveries.

 

Tamiya paint pots are loaded into boxes of 6, those 6 are loaded into a packing box, which is then loaded into a shipping box and that shipping box is loaded onto a pallet. pallets are loaded into intermodal containers.

 

How many.

It really depends on the order, the more items you can get into the container the lower the per item cost.

Its uncommon to work out the cost of shipping based on an item.

A pallet of paint is the size of 1 pallet, a pallet of big kits like an F-4C/D is the same size but with far less items so the per unit cost of shipping is higher on teh F-4C/D because of its size not the cost it starts off being.

For instance there might be 1000 pots of paint on a pallet, the cost of shipping a pallet might be £100 so that is £100 divided by 1000 so the cost of shipping is £0.10, which is added to the unit cost so 1000 pots of paint costs £1 from Tamiya plus the shipping cost so the minimum you can sell that for is £1.10 (but there are other costs on top of that that need to be considered), on a pallet of F-4 kits there are only 50 kits but the shipping cost is still £100, so thats £100 divided by 50. so thats £2 per unit cost.

 

Which is why you pack as much as possible into a container.

 

Then as Hobbyco also distribute Italeri. Who might also manufacture in China....

And this is where my first comment comes into play.

It depends on who orders and who they order it from...

 

A FEU High capacity container isnt easy to fill. You can fit a lot of expensive pallets in 40foot of space.

 

Order a container, have it delivered to a place where other logistics companies can deliver pallets to it.

Raise POs and deliver to the containers location

pack the container

Raise it as a consignment with a shipping agent (book a slot in a stack on a ship)

Arrange its delivery to the port

Arrange somebody to meet it at the other end.

Arrange to have the pallets distributed, or taken to your own warehouse.

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