Hi all,
After reading the thread on AA shipping dramas . I noticed a lot of us ROW (rest of world non USA) people were getting shafted on freight
A few years back I had a big order with comp cams and the freight costs were crazy, I nearly backed out of the order. The sales rep gave me some advice which I'll pass on.
There is a company called OPAS http://www.opas.com/ (not endorsing the company) which is a freight onforder. Let me explain how it works you have the US company sent the goods to them (you provide incoming delivery advice notice) once all the parts are in they repack them into one package, using the maximum space in the said box (ever got a large box from overseas with a small part inside). They then provide different shipping quotes for you to choose from.
The other plus is you gives you a US postal address (in Portland OR) so you can get parts freighted to you at your US address very handy as most US sellers provide CONUS free shipping along with Evilbay etc. Have you ever tried to get a seller to sent your parts overseas most freak out and put it in the too hard basket . some even state US only (which you will now have)
Any ways I have found this a vary useful service as going back to cam order it was 3 seperate shipments over a few weeks.Time for a

We ship regularly to freight forwarders. It's a good way to consolidate and get a better shipping cost, however the customer has to set it up.

Some more tips mainly for my fellow Australians.
If you are looking to buy a car to have shipped I found another helpful company USA to AUS (no i don't work there) they don't ship from the major centres (LA etc) but from Kelso WA on the west coast and Charlotte NC east coast. This keeps the overheads down and means lower prices. They ship farm equipment from AUS and the USA freight is like a back load to get the containers back. Worth a look I shipped a gearbox back recently and the cost was around a 1/3 of LA based companies.