Thinking of importing a heap of blanks into NZ. Any recommendations?

It’s hard to get a good selection of blanks here in NZ. There are only a couple of importers who do a pretty good job but they’re often short of certain blanks for long periods of time which is rather frustrating. I’ve been considering importing about 200, keeping about half for myself and selling the rest to other boardmakers I know round here. Does anyone have any recommendations of a decent manufacturer? US blanks springs to mind, along with Dion in Australia. There appear to be a couple in South Africa which could be good considering the weakness of their currency at the moment. Any help greatly appreciated.

Reverb made a small list here: http://www.swaylocks.com/forums/blowing-foam?page=1

 

surfblanks (midget foam) in brookvale is the best foam and service. Always get blanks nice and quick 

was also reading on his website that hes making the blanks available to the US, for anyone thats interested 

Getting blanks from there to here isnt cost effective. even by the container at this point.

Burfords

south coast foam

in Aus

Thanks for the suggestions. Australia is looking pretty good at the moment. They’re talking about possible $NZ and $A parity so this is an advantage. I imagine the freight costs from Aust to NZ are a bit cheaper than from US to NZ. Also I wonder if they make blanks in Brazil. Their currency is tanking big time so that could be worth looking into. 

I don’t know what NZ’s policies are but be aware of potential hidden expenses.  I was planning to import some of Peter Hosking’s Australian blanks to US. The prices seemed good and there was a currency advantage at the time.  

When I contacted the people on this end who would be responsible for unloading, customs, etc.,  I found that any price advantages were completely erased and then some.  It was actually going to cost a whole lot more than buying domestic blanks from Clark…  the union guys who operate forklifts and cranes would have had me over a barrel if I had gone through with it.  Blanks would have also been taxed pretty heavily as “raw materials.”  Fortunately, Peter was understanding about it when I cancelled the whole thing.

Anyway, just do your homework and avoid any surprises.  

whilst johns statement is accurate

you have no choice

 fill the container-- check for cost here

midget@surfblanksaustralia.com

 

Make sure that you get a shipping forwarder  (a company that arranges shipping for you) to give you a quote, they will also organise all the paperwork, customs duty, freight etc for you that would be a complete headache if you are not used to it.

As Johnmellor said the costs of importing stuff (Port Charges, Import Tax, VAT, Shipping Insurance, Road Freight from port to final destination) all work out to be very expensive.

Make sure that you get a F.O.B price from the supplier because otherwise it can be even more difficult to work out the overall cost if you only have an ex-works price.

Most blank manufacturers only like to export full containers which are usually a minimum of 300 blanks, if you order less they will likely charge you more per blank and/ or will possibly be unwilling to give you a FOB price.

It is likely that it will all work out much more expensive that you first think, so make sure that you do your sums very carefully before making the decision, and if it is worth it or not for you to have so much capital tied up in surfboard foam for so long.

I have a fair bit of experience in importing FCL and LCL of various stuff and i can tell you that it can be pretty stressful.

0359873320 add your Australian international code.