The elephant in the room that went unmentioned by the article is scammers. Moving companies are notorious for holding your belongings hostage once they're all packed up and "renegotiating" their fee.

If someone could solve that problem - not just not being a scammer, but getting people to believe that you're not a scammer - I think they'd take over the industry.

I'm surprised that's a thing. IANAL but I naively think that if they pulled that on me I would say we had an oral agreement which is legally just as binding as a written one. If they don't honor it, then they can unload my stuff and remunerate me for the costs that arise in terms of my time and money for finding someone else.

At which point they laugh at your tough guy act, decline, and welcome you to call the cops. When the cops arrive, they say your oral agreement was for twice what it was, and on top of that they demand that you get your stuff off their truck and renumerate them for the costs that arise in terms of their time and money for canceling the agreement they claim you had.

Oral agreements may be legally binding, but it's pretty hard to prove they exist, or what the terms are.

they go like hahaha sue me, and meanwhile we will hold on to your things until the courts have decided

Then I'd buy replacements for all the things they keep, then send them the invoice. I've been wanting a new laptop for a while.

All your stuff will mysteriously burn in a fire. Since you have next to no list of what you actually gave them, the value of each object, the proof of payment etc, you will essentially get 5% of the actual value of what you lost after month of waiting for the insurance to act.

But hey, you bought a new laptop - and you have the insurance money to pay for it.

Most people cannot afford to just go out and replace everything they own.

In which country is an oral agreement legally just as binding as a written one? In Germany oral agreements mean diddly squat, only what's written down and signed holds weight in court. That's why the country is still big on still using fax and snail mail for formal agreements.

I'm from Austria. I'd be surprised if it were different in Germany. Again, I'm not a lawyer, but the way I've been told (by my brother, who is a lawyer) is that written and oral are equally binding. (I'd take it this is especially so for consumers.) Sure, you'll have a hard time proving agreement if there's no written record. But I do not think the law requires written agreement. If the mover says "I'll do it for 5k" and you say yes, then that is binding.

Funny, I lived in Austria before and I had loads of shady encounters with small and large service providers agreeing something on the phone and then not honoring that because "I don't know who you spoke to yesterday but if it's not in writing we can't honor it".

Car services are notorious for this behavior where they quote you a price on the phone and after they have your car "hostage", invoice you a much higher price. Also phone companies/ISPs where sales reps would promise you some discounts on the phone or in person if you sign up today and when your first invoice arrives you have to pay everything in full with no discounts.

Seems to be the norm the norm in that country and not sure how you'd be able to argue against that in court with just words and no written proof of the contrary. God I hate Google for disabling the call recording API since Android 9.

Since then, I always ask them to send me "what we just agreed on the phone" in writing via e-mail. If they refuse, I know there's a high chance they won't honor it later.

Please let me know if I'm wrong.

honestly I'm surprised.. the reason for written agreement is that oral agreements are vapor

In Germany an agreement is binding regardless of whether it’s given written or verbal. In practice, an oral agreement is harder to prove of course, especially when it comes to the details of it. But that is still a separate issue.

In Sweden. The problem is of course that it usually very hard to prove what is agreed. But if one part have a recording, that is very much enough. As is an email trail.

Switzerland.

That sounds like something mafia guys would do in some tv show. I'm not surprised it happens, but I'm curious where this kind of behavior is still tolerated.

Maybe this is only an issue with small time movers? I've moved a few times but have always used larger companies who I was referred to by family/friends and who provided written quotes. Overall they were all trustworthy.

That's where you call the police, right?

Written quotations are critical for this.

> Not only are young people moving more often, they're also doing smaller moves (with less stuff), says Carrigan

Another piece of evidence about the "precariat" of young workers ...

Anyway, if someone wants a multibillion-dollar idea that may require more than a billion dollars of work, the technological solution needed here is "home inventory management".

There are a few startups that will let you wave a phonecam around a room and produce a floorplan from it. There are a few things like Google Lens that will identify products one at a time. What there isn't is a good quick way of scanning a room for all the stuff in it.

Once you can do that, you can inventory it all on the way onto the truck and on the way off the truck. You can assign a value to it. You could even offer the arbitrage service of "it's cheaper to sell this here and buy a new one at the destination, do you want to do that?"

>What there isn't is a good quick way of scanning a room for all the stuff in it.

This would be incredible for insurance documentation, too.

Having just gone through a family situation with a fire, the fact that there was a pretty good inventory of the house was incredibly useful. I really need to do it for myself but haven't gotten around to it; it's a big job.

I figure that, as a way better than nothing first cut, a low-effort approach may be to simply do a detailed walk through with a video camera and record commentary.

The Japanese have moving down to a science. Id normally be reluctant to post any youtube links[1] here but this is an excellent overview.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynEjnebw8LA

I thought of the same exact video (they got the service for free in return for the video/promo/shout-out).

I have watched most episodes of Shark Tank. I remember than when a 'pitcher' starts with the phrase "XYZ industry is a $$$$ billion business in the U.S., look like an upcoming target for disruption", the sharks start rolling their eyes. That person usually doesn't get the funding.

> As we've reported, Americans are generally moving less

We (the people not living in the USA) think that USA residents buy and sell houses 'frequently'. Buy --> wait --> price goes up --> sell --> buy the next house.

I think that a critical contribution to moving less is the financial crisis 2008-2018 it would make sense that people were stuck to the houses they bought, unable to perform the aforementioned loop, thus moving less.

It's not just people who own houses that have to move between them. Most millennials haven't even bought a house yet. But they still need to move between apartments, and that happens on more frequent time scales than someone buying/selling their home. If I had to guess, the average lease in a city for 20-30 year old tenants is between 1 and 3 years. It's not uncommon to move three times in a five year period.

Part of it is that, if you're single and renting, you're probably more likely to move closer to a new job to avoid even a relatively modest increase in commute time. Whereas, if you own a place--especially if there are other considerations like a partner or kids--you'll likely just suck up a longer commute to stay where you are.

I don't know if it's changed but at least at one point the USA moving industry was super corrupt. There was a 60 Minutes episode on it decades ago. Here's a more modern version

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/spartan-van-lines-moving-scams-...

I had a TV stolen the one time I used movers instead of doing it myself.

I've always wondered why containerization hasn't become a player in personal moving.

I think I looked at PODS and the like when moving, but they have non-standard containers and end up being kind of expensive.

I know it can be done, because the SO of a friend of mine moved from the US to guam and got the container I believe for $1200.

PODS also had a huge problem with not being able to deliver containers ontime / when promised. They chalked it up to being really busy but seemed to not recover for extended periods of times and it seemed they just kept taking on new pods when they couldn't deliver what they had... and yeah the pricing was pretty high anyway.

I've been kicking this idea around for a while now.

Just two weeks ago I was texting with a former associate about getting some 53 containers, cutting them up into 5, 8x8x10 cubes and welding what's needed for a few other mods.

I'm thinking to myself, if we can sell these for $1300(?) it would be a good value for some situaitons right?

I've seen some of the problems and come up with a few solutions for a few of them, so it might be viable.

His dad moved his steel shop business, and I have not gotten a chance to get out to the new one.. but think maybe next week we should try to calculate things tighter and consider further.

Might need some seed money to get some prototypes done to show off an MVP and get a real calculation for all the time plus materials.

So essentially a half-length TEU? The question that comes to my mind is "what are the use cases?" While the concept of loading up a cube and having it transported to a new location has some attractions, there are a lot of situations (apartments, condos) where there really isn't any place to drop off something like that for loading or unloading. (Which would presumably be the advantage over just renting a van or small truck.)

The target market it going to be more for people who are moving into homes that have a backyard that can accept and keep a portable storage building.

The usefulness with condos / apartments is much less, and some townhomes / non-attached homes can't fit or have na HOA that would not allow for portable building in backyard - so they would mostly be out for this idea..

however they could use the unit to protect the shipment and then sell or loan to someone else in the area that could use a storage building.

With that in mind, part of my plan is to add siding and have roof options that make this look more like a regular storage building and less like a shipping container, so they fit in more places.

This way they are used for shipping, then also used for storage and can be re-used for shipping or re-sold, etc.

Pricing for regular storage buildings vary, but it seems they are in line with this maybe.. so it might catch on.

I just moved from the US to Hong Kong and containerized shipping seems to be the standard for international moves.

I'm not sure it would make sense for moves within the US, since everything would probably go by truck anyway.

I moved from Scotland to Finland and also shipped the majority of my stuff via a container on a boat.

Of course I downsized considerably before moving, leaving behind all the obvious bulky things that made no economic sense to transport such as furniture, electronics, etc.

In the end I think I paid to ship 8 cubic-meters of "stuff". It was a couple of pallets which were around 2mx2mx2m when combined. Things arrived smoothly but I recall quite strongly that I paid more for the insurance than for the actual shipping. Happily I didn't need it.

Why do you think it haven't? My parent have moved a good amount of times in their life utilizing a container (managed by moving companies).

I wonder if it has something to do with getting a TEU in and out of a typical residential driveway.

Getting a TEU in and out is no different from getting the truck carrying it in and out. What may be different is that a moving truck can park somewhere for the relatively short period of time needed to load or unload the truck by a moving crew. Whereas, you might not be able to park a TEU in the same spot for the week or two you might need to load or unload yourself.

(And, if a moving crew is still needed in any case, it probably mostly doesn't matter if you're using a container not. And there may be some advantages to a regular truck I'm not aware of. I assume any ocean freight is containerized in any case.)

While it is painful to move, the frequency for repeat customers will doom most disruptors. An established company with a massive network like U-Haul could do it except for the fact that moving things is a skill that people consider to be "just manual labor" and avoid paying accordingly.

For apartments though, I could see a "house concierge moving" as-a-service being a possible disruption of established moving companies. E.g. they move you for "free" for appropriately long and priced lease. The "hostage holding" of your goods is a non-event here since the goal is to have a happy tenant.

Moved from the East Coast to the West Coast. The moving industry seriously needs some "disruptive technology". I don't think that a gig economy is the way to go but moving should not be this absurdly stressful.

Well, the main problem that needs to be solved is, you need a reliable way of packing, storing and moving one or more person's stuff from one location to another and possibly and possibpy unpacking on arrival on a specific date.

As it is now, the solutions to these problems have varying levels of self reliance. At the bottom, most simple, with highest level of self reliance

- Own, borrow or rent a truck, pack your own things, drive your own things to your destination, return truck if not yours. Requires packing loading and driving everything yourself. Price can vary but usually cheaper than movers.

Next you've got:

- Random personal ad people with trucks. Not usually professional companies, varying levels of quality and reliability from, will probably smash and lose your shit to basically a professional. Vehicles come varying sizes, may not be suitable for large or high end moves. Price varies, quality tends to correspond with price.

- Professional movers, varying levels of quality from will probably not break your stuff to will dust off and spit shine everything you own. Service can vary from simple loading transport and unloading to complete packing, loading, transport, unloading and unpacking. Cost can get high.

- Container options. These have much of the same upsides and downsides as a truck rental, with the fun of dealing with shipping.

All of these suffer from problems with shortage of booking around common moving days, a problem that has more to do with the way moves tend to be either the end or the the middle of the month.

Anything that involves other people handling your property will have a risk of poor reliability. Movers are one of those professions, similar to landscaping and other jobs that are physically demanding, but not that difficult, so tends to be a lower paid job companies fill with unskilled and temporary labourers, the reliability of whom can be questionable.

I've probably missed some things, but after moving only a few months ago, this is kind of the summary of what I found available. I just can't really think of anything that could really do it any better under those constraints.

You can also pack your stuff into boxes and ship it via FedEx to a package pickup point near your new house.

It doesn't work for furniture, but it can go a long way.

I would assume anything small/light enough to be easily shipped via FedEx could also fit into a reasonably-sized personal vehicle. Renting a one-way van is a fairly straightforward way to move a modest amount of stuff although you do have to plan ahead if you're moving at a busy time.

Or you're moving across the country and want to fly.

Well, sure, if you don't have a car and basically just have the equivalent of a dozen suitcases of stuff or so to transport. Personally, I haven't had that small amount of things since I entered college. Perhaps I'd be more compact these days with digital media and so forth, but I doubt I'm all that unusual.

I've lost count of how many times I've moved in the last 6 years since college. For the big moves, I just sold my furniture before leaving. Other than that, I pretty much fit your description.

If you're renting you really shouldn't be spending on furniture anyway, just get rid of it.

If you just need to ship things then there are all sorts of specialty pallet type containers that you can stick your things in and the LTL industry will get them where they're going within a couple percent of cost.

It's getting someone else to show up and stick all your crap in containers to your satisfaction and then the reverse at the destination that's the problem.

I sincerely doubt moving is ripe for "disruption". Moving is all about managing the humans. That doesn't scale and isn't affected by technology. The biggest problem is making sure that NONE of the humans involved in the process suck.

Graebel has moved me every single time I have had to move across the US. They have moved me almost a dozen times. The packers and unpackers showed up somewhere between 30 minutes to an hour early. They will pack and inventory your entire house--in no more than 2 days. The truck driver will load in no more than a day, and generally about half of one. The truck driver will beat you to your destination if you dawdle at all. They will unpack at destination, and put it in your cupboards and closets if you are there to direct them. The packing will be amazing and everything will get there with no broken pieces. And, to this day, I am convinced that the single box that disappeared was my fault somehow. And Graebel handled everything when something went wrong--packer missing? another guy dispatched within an hour. Big rig can't get into complex? Small relay truck dispatched immediately. Truck broke down--another one dispatched transparently to grab the load and keep it moving. Trucker got in early--truck unloaded into storage and delivered on smaller rig.

This has cost me somewhere around $5K-$6K each time--Graebel would have definitely charged more if they thought they could get away with it (they should have--I would have paid it). You are talking easily 125 man-hours or more. That's about $40-$48 an hour if everything went to labor and the truck driver--and it doesn't. You have all of the people in the offices coordinating everything, you have all the fleet and logistics management as well as storage spaces. I suspect that people are probably around $20/hour or less when all is said and done.

I have had HORDES of people with moving horror stories, and yet I had never had one. Apparently, Graebel was so much better than the rest of the industry that it prevented this.

And yet the old Graebel is no more--I have no idea who to call the next time I have to move. Apparently people would rather have their stuff broken and stolen rather than pay the people handling your valuables enough to avoid the problem.

This is just like the airlines. People claim to be unhappy, but when push comes to shove, they're such cheap bastards that they'll buy the $10 cheaper ticket and either get nickle and dimed to death or get treated like sardines in a tin can.

Edit: The US HAD a moving company like the Japanese one below. And it went under because Americans are too fscking cheap.

(Video link courtesy of thinkingkong elsewhere in thread) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynEjnebw8LA

Interesting viewpoints. Got me thinking for a bit;

I think it's so much people are cheap cheap, as pretty much since 2008 most people are not stacking up lots of extra cash, they just have less money.

On top of that, I've seen articles where there is so much 'heirloom furniture' being gifted / inherited and most people don't want it, don't have the space for it and don't want to pay to store it, that goodwills around the country are being over flooded with it.

I've definitely seen trends where many people are buying cheaper, more disposable furniture, clothes, and everything. I'd hazard a guess that many people moving these days would have enough space in a rental car for their cherished / valuable stuff - and all the rest would not be worth six thousand to re-buy, much less the hassle of packing and unpacking and risks associated with that for six grand.

I did not think about these things in this way in the 90s, early 00s.

$5-6K for a move is a pretty substantial amount of money. In addition to paying the first month's rent + deposit that is the norm in a lot of places- I doubt most people can afford that level of service. I don't think it's because "they're such cheap bastards".

> $5-6K for a move is a pretty substantial amount of money.

No argument, but that's probably the lower bound for competence. If you aren't willing to pay that, congratulations, you have decided to do everything yourself. As I pointed out, there are a LOT of man-hours involved in moving and the employees involved are probably around $20/hour. That's a bit above the $15/hour wage that seems to denote above average competence (Target and Costco are both at $15/hour minimum--Costco goes up from there).

As for that $5K, you can pay it in cash; you can pay it in time; you can pay it in grief. Choose your currency.

I assume in a lot of cases, people using professional movers are doing so as part of company paid relocation. At least that used to be the case. I have no idea what the norm is today. And company relocation people are going to be looking for the cheap options.

> Americans are too fucking cheap.

Americans or most westerners ?

A lot of fields have become sad due to competing race to the bottom. People "today?" are too deeply wired to pick the cheapest, the market will reflect that.