As an end-to-end international logistics partner, UOVO offers a full range of holistic services to suit your collection’s distinct needs. Our international shipping team can provide bespoke global logistics coordination and solutions for airfreight and ocean freight, as well as cross-border ground transportation from the United States to Canada. Here’s a closer look at what that coordination involves — and the standards that travel with your collection long after it leaves our care.
The Partner Network: Standards That Travel
UOVO’s international capabilities rests on a network of vetted partner agents coordinated through ICEFAT, a global trade organization of fine art logistics specialists. Every UOVO location is an ICEFAT member, and three of our facilities are certified under ICEFAT’s new third party audit procedure – UOVO San Francisco, UOVO Denver, and UOVO Long Island City.
When we recommend an agent in Milan or Singapore, we are pointing to an organization audited against the same standards we are held to, using equipment specified the same way and keeping records in the same form.
“As proud as we are to be certified, we’re also very proud to be part of a group where we know that our partners are certified too. When we recommend international services to our clients, we’re confident that we’re recommending good partners that meet their expectations.”
— Martha Hart, Head of International Shipping, UOVO
One Point of Contact, Both Sides of the Border
Practically, a request moves through UOVO like this:
- You raise an international need with your UOVO account manager — the same person who already handles your storage, transportation, or installation.
- The international team is copied immediately. Not after an estimate is requested, and not once a complication surfaces. Expertise is applied from the first message.
- You receive an estimate covering route, mode, documentation, and cost, prepared as quickly and as accurately as the specifics allow.
- Compliance confirms permits, restrictions, and filings before anything is booked.
- We brief the receiving agent on your requirements directly, in the terms their operation uses.
- Records are retained — proof of delivery, shipping invoice, air waybill, and entry summary — and made available to you on the UOVO Client Portal, so the shipment is documented long after it arrives.
“A lot of my time is spent talking to our overseas partners — translating the needs of our clients so that they can have a seamless experience across borders.”
— Martha Hart, Head of International Shipping, UOVO
Compliance Before Departure
Objects rarely fail to move internationally because a truck is unavailable – they fail to move because a permit is missing, a material is restricted, or an entry was filed incorrectly.
UOVO works with partners and in-house expertise to advise on all aspects of import and export formalities at major ports across the United States. That work covers customs clearance and import and export formalities at major ports across the United States; CITES permits for objects containing protected materials such as ivory, tortoiseshell, certain hardwoods, and feathers; US Fish and Wildlife requirements; and restrictions that can apply between states as readily as between countries.
End-to-End Project Management
In practice, end-to-end project management means full services from collection at origin, packing and custom crating built for the object’s specifications, in-house cargo screening, freight forwarding, air or ocean freight booking, customs clearance at both ends, delivery and installation, and storage on either side of the journey if required.
“It can cover everything from picking up at point A — transporting, packing, shipping, even storing. It’s full end-to-end project management.”
— Maria Cabrejas, Director of Business Development, Specialized Services, UOVO
It also means the specialized handling that institutional work requires: courier and supervised shipments for objects that cannot travel unaccompanied, condition reporting at each transfer, and the documentation standards that lenders and registrars expect.
Summary
UOVO assists with international needs through our ICEFAT partner network audited to a common standard, in-house compliance that shapes a shipment before it is booked, and a single team that stays with a project from the first estimate to the final proof of delivery.
Planning an international shipment, exhibition, or loan? UOVO’s international services team provides global logistics coordination, air and ocean freight, cross-border ground transportation, customs clearance, and custom crating for collectors, galleries, and institutions. Contact us today to discuss your project.