I didn't ship anything. I put everything (inc lots of English books for my children and myself because I knew they'd be in short supply here) in suitcases. We arrived with 7 x 30 kilos suitcases plus two huge dive/travel bags. The excess baggage I paid with Thomson and First Choice (I made another trip on my own a few weeks later) was 8 pounds sterling per kilo ONE way. Nobody checked our bags and I had nothing stolen. I felt that this was the easiest way to do things, but I kind of wanted to downsize and 'shed' a lot of things before I came here because I was a serious hoarder in UK! You can book excess baggage in advance if you want to. The airlines won't carry suitcases over 30k each so be careful.
If you book the premium service with First Choice you get an extra 10k baggage allowance. I booked this the second time and it only cost me an extra 60 pounds online (making my flight price 269 return!) so I paid an extra 60 pounds but saved 80 pounds in excess baggage charges. The premium service was well worth it, priority check in/baggage reclaim, roomier seats, free drinks (inc alcohol), glass champagne/fresh fruit on take off, choice of meals, extras like ice cream during films, individual films/games to rewind, pause at your convenience, plus all the staff I encountered were fantastic. Well worth it! Very impressed!
I left it till the last minute (as always!) to sell off my stuff in UK, but I should have been more organised and put things on ebay so that I got the best prices I could. Hope this info helps.
Oh, nearly forgot! The warranty on my computer.....because the guy builds them himself (except the monitors of course) I'd expect him to fix or replace things up to about a year. I see him and talk to him fairly often, so it's a fairly casual arrangement....as are a lot of things here. Probably different if you buy in the bigger cities like Santo Domingo or Santiago.