Am I thick?

I seem to be really struggling with the whole importing side of our business venture. Which, let's face it, is fairly crucial as we need to do the importing to actually have anything to sell!

I understand the whole filling in of customs declaration forms, paying of duty and VAT etc. This I understand.

What I don't get is how we actually GET the products to us!?

Previously I have ordered personal stuff from the USA and had it sent in the post. I've then had to go to the Post Office and pay the duty and also be ripped off for "admin fees" which are about triple the cost of the duty I've paid.

Recommendations are to use a shipping agent who will manage all that side of the business for you, so I've emailed a company my uncle uses to try and get an idea of how much that costs - and to see if they could take a number of deliveries for us, group them together and then deliver them on to us in fewer, bigger deliveries.

However, we're a start up company, and I can't help thinking that there has to be some way of doing this yourself?! But there seems to be no information anywhere on where to get boxes sent to customs, even if you do complete all the forms etc. yourself. And if you do do self declaration, it seems that it's very easy for deliveries to go missing and if not that, then they just get delayed while they're going through the customs process.

In other news, I got in this morning to find an urgent piece of work needed for a customer meeting at 2 p.m. this afternoon. I bumped two other equally urgent projects to get this done, sent it over.... no reply.

How long does it take just to fire back a quick thank you for helping them make their deadline? Sheesh.

So, onto the other 2 urgent pieces of work that both need doing today!!