Alright I think we're finally in the home stretch - I am expecting the Vommats to arrive with me on Monday the 30th or Tuesday the 31st. As soon as they get to me, I'll turn them around to you! Depending on what time they get here I'll try to get some out same day or next day. Once I start marking the orders as fulfilled in Shopify, you'll get an update, so keep an eye out for that.
This was a longer road than expected but we are almost there. I imported by sea this time to save some money and while I knew it was going to take longer - there were more delays than I would have thought. Since it was LCL or less than container load, my pallet was loaded into a shipping container with an assortment of other small loads. I assume the initial delays to get on the boat were the freight managers trying to fill out a container before sending it off.
I tracked my ship for a day or two as it left Germany and then found that there's no tracking deep in the Atlantic. Then a day two before anticipated arrival in NYC, I saw it get picked up by some sort of radio tracking off the Cape and I knew we made it. I also watched some tugs bring it into the port. There is so much data out there on boats and routes and depths and man it is just really interesting.
This is what I did every day for a few days like a psycho.
Once the boat is moored, they unload and unpack all the containers. The freight brokers got in touch on HTC codes to make sure the sheets were classified correctly for customs. Once through customs, they went into a warehouse in New Jersey while they worked up the final invoice.
They won't deliver until I've paid that invoice and they say - keep your eyes out for an invoice because you need to pay it as soon as possible and if you don't pay it quickly we will charge you for storage. How much will they charge? When does that take effect? How quickly does it really need to be paid? All questions that I don't have answers to but when I did get that invoice, I had my kids in the back of the car reading it to tell me the final amount due and then I had to pull into a rest area on 93S so that I could indeed pay it as soon as possible. Pretty silly move but we got it paid and it sounds like they'll get to me on Monday or Tuesday.
So! Enjoy this weekend within a holiday week where no one really knows what day it is. I'm going to start writing all my thank you notes and get organized for Monday or Tuesday because we're almost back, baby! Vommats for the New Year.
