Removals Service

[guvna]

Has anybody got any experience in the removals industry?

Thinking about buying a luton van and starting to offer the service in London, primarily for young people moving flats. Do you think there is good money to be made in something like this? What do you think would be the bet way to advertise and get business? Is it a crowded market?

 

[IANL]

Hi

Gumtree is a good place to advertise. Also cards in newsagent windows still work I think

Make sure you have insurance. You don't want anyone suing you because you damaged their grandmothers £ 15,000 carriage clock they were given!!! Seriously you need to have insurance for damage/loss to their property and also public liability in case you damage the building whilst moving stuff in and out.

You need to ensure that the insurance for loss or damage covers goods in transit.

God luck

 

[Baz Watkins]

To be honest, for your service, i'd go the flyer route, or newsagents and supermarkets. Also dont forget school billboards and the University yearbooks.

Also for next to nothing get a basic website (cough) and you have a permanent destination for any enquiries.

Has anybody got any experience in the removals industry?

Thinking about buying a luton van and starting to offer the service in London, primarily for young people moving flats. Do you think there is good money to be made in something like this? What do you think would be the bet way to advertise and get business? Is it a crowded market?

 

[guvna]

To be honest, for your service, i'd go the flyer route, or newsagents and supermarkets. Also dont forget school billboards and the University yearbooks.

Also for next to nothing get a basic website (cough) and you have a permanent destination for any enquiries.

Well yes, a website is certainly needed. Do people read flyers? Really? What are the chances of somebody reading it just before they need to move? I think they could be a waste of time and money. Especially if its going after young professionals who regularly move. In my opinion of course

If you where about to move, how would you look for a removals service?

I think getting some kind of decent online presence and marketing strategy would be required... just not sure how to do it well. There is a company called "0800 move me" who seem to be doing quite well in London, there is also Aussie Man With a Van (can't post links yet).. I guess a decent marketing strategy would need to be thought out to make it work

 

[matt seymour]

Man and van removals is another service that a few people seem to be keen to try along with valeting and cleaning at the moment.

In short, it is becoming quite competitive because more and more people are doing it. I was seriously thinking about doing it earlier this year and even bought a van before I had a change of heart.

As far as marketing goes, you should print postcards rather than leaflets. Leave them in shop windows, drop them through the door of every house you see that has a Sold or For Sale sign outside, put them on every university campus near you (students move quite a lot), visit letting and estate agents and ask to leave a card with them etc etc etc. You will need a website as well of course. Signwriting on the van is also very important.

You can get work through a site called Shiply. People who need removals or anything large moving basically state what they want and you provide a quote. It's quite a good site and last time I looked you could even see how much other people had quoted. It's a bit like Ebay but the difference is you need to make the lowest bid.

You'll need the removals insurance for the van (get a Luton), public liability and goods in transit as well.

 

[guvna]

What made you decide against it after getting the van Matt?

 

[Matt1959]

I did some of this on the side a while ago. What I went for was localish items removal and shifting ie not house removals as such. The advantages of the former is better return per hour (in and out quick) , less risk of damaging stuff, less need for another pair of hands, less need for a luton (their mpg gets hammered). Whether I got this right I dont know but it was ok as a sideline...

 

[shadesofblue]

I did this when I was at university. I worked for an old farmer in Derbyshire who had diversified around six years before. He ran two vans and had a good little business but it had taken a long time to build up as referrals were a key part of the work. He also did a lot of work for an auction house which covered the slack days.

If you're going to do it properly you'll need goods in transit insurance, van insurance and another insurance specifically for if you drop an item in the house.

Waste licence - required if you're going to be doing house clearances and again you'll be competing with the didicoys who operate without.

This can all become quite expensive so it's understandable that a number of competitors didn't bother with it!

You can try linking up with estate and letting agents but they'll usually want some sort of fee for it.

Advertising in Parish magazines always gave an excellent return on the investment.


If you only have one van you're consigning yourself to one bedroom flats or very small houses so I would suggest charging by the hour. It can sometimes work out cheaper for an individual to hire a removals van for two hours at £40.00 an hour than going to rentavan and doing a diy job if it's a local move.

However, in today's climate if you want to be 100% legit I would give it careful consideration as you'll need a considerable bit of surplus cash to keep you going through the lean times.

You need to be doing family houses and quoting per job if you want to make some serious money but with that comes the added stress of key waits where you literally watch your profit margin tick away. Houses in chains can also be a problem. If you quote badly or the householder sneaks down a few items from the loft that you didn't see you may not fit them in your van. You'll then have the joy of dealing with this when the other removals van comes to unload into the house.

I really enjoyed it and do still consider starting up myself but you need to get the marketing right, it's not a business that you can enter into one day and get 100 bookings the next.

 

[MH1]

Tough game, loads of guys using works vans for free, plenty of Polish guys in my area have gone into this, insurance and fuel is going through the roof, and the clients are fewer than ever.

Best of luck, I think you will need it, did it for several years before arthritus took it's toll and prevented me from carrying on, but I always ensured I was the most expensive and more importantly never backed out from a job.

If someone wanted to move at 7am on a sunday morning 300 miles away, I would be there, as long as they were paying the right price. My mobile used to ring off the hook on saturdays when all the cheap guys had managed to get a better paying job and left customers in the lurch, unfortunately those got charged even more.

 

[matt seymour]

What made you decide against it after getting the van Matt?

On balance I decided that it was the kind of business that would take a while to get off the ground and I really needed something that would start making a reasonable income quickly.

As someone else has said, referrals do form a large part of your work and it takes time, a long time, for those to start coming in.

There was also the running costs such as the insurance and, of course, the rise in fuel prices along with maintaining the van. These things together with the fact that so many people seemed to have started up a man and van service in my area convinced me that this is not the best time for such a business.

The one advantage you might have is if you are good with websites and can knock up a decent one yourself. A lot of people offering man and van services are not exactly great at that kind of thing and many don't even have a website. Those that do quite often have something that looks like it was put together by a 5-year-old. No offence to any man and van services!

I would do some research and see how many people are offering the service in your area.