This is the single decision that moves a Greek shipping quote most. Take a container to yourself and you pay for the box whether you fill it or not. Share one and you pay for the space you use, but you travel on somebody else's schedule.
A full container load, which the trade calls FCL, is a box that is yours alone. It is sealed at your address and opened at the destination. A shared load, called LCL or groupage, means your goods are consolidated with other consignments going the same way.
Neither is better. They suit different volumes, different budgets and different levels of tolerance for waiting. What matters is being quoted the right one for what you actually own.
Your goods are collected, taken to a warehouse, and held until enough other shipments are going to Greece to make a container worth sailing. Everything is then loaded together, shipped, and separated again at the far end.
What you gain is cost. You pay for the volume you occupy rather than for a whole box, and for a modest household that difference is substantial.
What you give up is control of the calendar. Your goods sail when the container sails, not when you would like. On a quieter route or outside the busy season that wait can be longer than people expect, so ask what the realistic frequency is rather than the best case.
A container to yourself is sealed at your address and stays sealed until it reaches the destination. Fewer handling stages, a schedule that follows the vessel rather than a consolidation queue, and no waiting for other people's goods.
| Option | Roughly suits | Handling stages | Date control |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shared container space | Boxes, a room, a studio or small flat | Most | Least, you wait for the sailing |
| Twenty foot container | A one or two bedroom home with furniture | Few, sealed door to door | Good |
| Forty foot container | A family house including garage and garden | Few, sealed door to door | Good |
| Dedicated road vehicle | Mainland Greece, fixed dates, no port handling | Fewest | Best, and priced accordingly |
A dedicated vehicle is not a container at all. It carries only your goods, drives through France and Italy and crosses by ferry, which avoids port handling entirely. How the road route works
Nearly every dispute about a shipping quote is really a dispute about volume. The estimate was made from a phone call, the packed goods measured more, and the price moved.
The fix is a proper survey. On an ocean route from the States it matters even more, because there is no chance to add a forgotten item later. A video survey costs nothing and takes half an hour, and a home survey is better still on a large or complicated household. Either gives you a number the mover has to stand behind rather than one they can revise on loading day.
The items most often left out of estimates are the ones not in the main rooms: loft contents, garage shelving, garden furniture, bicycles, tools, and anything already in storage. Walk those spaces during the survey.
The answers that decide which quote you should actually be comparing.
Per cubic metre, yes, and for a modest household the saving is substantial. You pay for the space you occupy rather than for a whole box. What you pay instead is time, because your goods wait for a container to fill before it sails, and they are handled more times along the way.
Broadly the contents of a one or two bedroom home with normal furniture. A forty foot container suits a family house including garage and garden items. These are working guides rather than guarantees, and the only reliable figure comes from a survey of what you actually own.
It depends on how often the route is consolidated, which varies by season and by the moving company. Ask for realistic frequency rather than the best case, and ask where your goods are held in the meantime and whether that storage is charged. A vague answer here is a warning sign.
Only if it can legally and physically get there. Narrow streets, parking restrictions and overhead obstructions often mean the container is loaded at a depot and a smaller vehicle shuttles to your door. That shuttle costs money, so check whether the quote includes it.
Then the price usually changes, which is why the estimate matters so much. Insist on a video or home survey rather than a figure taken over the phone, and make sure the loft, garage, shed and anything already in storage are included. Volume is the price on this route.
Starting somewhere else? loading a container at Liverpool, shared space from the Midlands, shared space from the south west, shared space from Scotland.
Moving from elsewhere in Europe? a container from Gothenburg, from Aarhus or Copenhagen, from Oslo or Bergen, from Hamburg or Bremerhaven.
Send your addresses, your dates and a rough idea of the rooms involved. A vetted moving company from our network can survey the volume properly and price shared space against a container of your own.
Get your free quoteWe are a free enquiry service and a Working Member of AGM Group. We connect people shipping household goods to and from Greece with vetted international moving companies from that network. We do not carry out removals ourselves and we do not operate containers, vessels or warehouses.
Ask for both options in writing. Being quoted only one is how people end up paying for space they never used.
Written by Darren Benjamin, Founder, International Removals Companies.