Has anyone recently shipped a bike from England? If so, can you please advise as to what the approximate costs would be. I have found a bike there that I am considering purchasing and need to get an idea of its feasibility given my finances.

Edit: I was going to correct the typo in the title, but apparently I am not allowed to.

I don't know for certain about that cost, as I haven't done it myself, but I know that Hilary Stone charges something like 90 pounds sterling ($140) to ship a frame/fork only to North America, and one ebay seller in the UK who had a frame/fork up that I'd inquired about recently quoted me a similar figure. I've been told that one can't get too much below this figure with 'signed-for' post (i.e. tracked, insured shipping). Both cases, though, likely include some premium for 'handling'. Haven't researched the specific options myself, though, so those who have specific knowledge from experience can obviously give much better insight...

It should be around $150 but I think you could probably find something more competitive if you look around, and if that's an option from your seller. I've shipped one bike back and forth and that's about how much it was. Also, be aware of any potential customs charges--do some investigation because if you're not careful, your bike will get held up at customs until you pay the "fee"--basically you can't get something for nothing and someone somewhere always wants you to pay TAX. It's a huge hassle. Just out of curiosity, what kind of bike?

I had a bike shipped from Austria once, the seller was VERY nice,

he packed it up, went to the post and the package was too big,

he thought about it, took it home,

broke it down abit and repacked it into 2 packages, very considerable savings as the 2 packages will go through the post, not special carriers.

think about it

When I ship a complete bike from Belgium to the US, I pay about €95 ($123). A frame only is about €62 ($82). I ship with bPost (the Belgian Post) but sometimes it gets delivered by DHL at the other end.
When packing one has to pay attention to the size, with large bikes (60cm and up) this can be a problem. Also, cardboard and other packing material comes out quite heavy, recently I packed a sub 3kg frame + form that came out close to 10kg packed!
Packing properly also takes time, effort and material, so $140 shipping is far from outrageous IMO.

I just had a complete bike shipped and it cost about $235. To make things worse, I ended up getting charged another $65 for Customs a few weeks later... Beware.....

Beyond whatever it costs, you have to convince the seller to ship it. Such convincing is usually done by either paying more for the item, or paying a premium for the shipping (so either way, its all about $$).

I shipped a pair of jeans once on ebay to Japan. Did I want to do it? No. But the buyer paid $100 for the jeans (that did wonders to convincing me), and paid full priority mail to Japan (about $45).

Had one shipped last month, Fedex for just under 150, and last year via DHL for about the same. Pack them well, make sure the dropouts are backed up with a block. I've also found marking "this end up" and "do not lay flat" helps.

I ship via FedEx only! Never have Internationally, but you can go to fedex.com and obtain a quote! Depending on the size of the bike, and if it is a 58cm or smaller, the dimensions will probably be or should be 53x29x9=129"! You want to stay undet 130", as FedEx and UPS will charge an automatic oversize fee of $50.00, on top of the transportation charges. Duties and Taxes are always owe to the importing country. The Duties are generally billed a month to a month and a half after the transportation charges.

Flash

I ship in the other direction, from Canada to England, or Spain, or...

It costs about $225.00 to ship a complete bicycle from my place to some destination across the big pond. But to get that price, you must break the bicycle down to fit into a box that the post office, in each country, will accept, size wise. Fitting a complete bicycle into an appropriate sized box takes me about four hours to do.

The bicycle will fit into a box, cut down to the black lines, in order for the Post Office people to accept it...



This is what the bike looks like just before it goes into the box...


And this is an example of how the cost to ship goes up as the size of the box increases. Once a certain point is reached, it is time to call FedEx or some other shipper. When that happens, my cost to ship reaches about $600.00 CND...

Nice example Randy!

Right now the least expensive carrier in either direction is through the Postal Service.

$80-125 for frame / $175-225 for a complete bike with some tracking/signature required service.

Make sure to verify what the total dimension and dimensional weight is without incurring any additional handling fees. I would recommend using a frame box and a wheel box for shipping a complete bike. You can spread out the components between the two boxes to keep the weight down on each.

You can have the seller declare it as a "Gift" along with an HONEST declared value and you shouldn't incur any additional fees or delays with customs. Make sure both Ship From and Ship To address' are residential and not from/to a business.

A good packing job goes without saying.