Interstate Removalists News

No one wants it. What to do with items that aren’t sell-able or donatable.

• Take it to the dump. Its about half the costs of a miniskip unless you have to hire a trailer, see if you have a friend who has a ute and bribe them.
• Miniskips are cheap and convenient and save multiple trips to the dump.
• Hire 1800-Got-Junk to come out and pick it up. More expensive, but easy. You can sit inside with your feet up and enjoy a beverage while everything is done for you – and cleaned up afterwards.
• Put it out the front of your house and try and give it away. Put a ‘Free’ or ‘Give Away’ sign on it. One person’s trash is another’s treasure, as they say!
• If you have an unwanted metal such, as a fridge or washing machine, you can sell it at scrap metal yard or even have a metal merchant come out and pick it up for free, either try Gumtree or Yellow Pages.

Consider Eating Your Pantry Soon. Not literally, we suggest consider using up your perishables in your pantry, fridge and freezer. Eat things like your canned foods, pasta’s and rices, bottled drinks and anything else you can finish before you move. Do the same with your frozen meat and vegies, if you don’t this will all be thrown away on moving day.

Your Accommodation and Transport. You can arrange your own transport and accommodation needs for your move. If you didn’t know, iMovers can arrange your accommodation and car transport too.

Kids. Moving can present many dangers to children, particularly heavy items such as fridges and couches.  To be on the safe side, we recommend arranging a friend or family to mind your kids for the day, leaving you and us free to concentrate on finishing the job as safely and efficiently as possible.

Pets. Now is the time to arrange transport for Puss and Rover. Some people are able to move their pets in their own car. We recommend you get a cage for cats as they are hard to contain and if they escape on moving day they will take off. Guess what… we can arrange pet transport for you too!

Time to book iMovers as your Interstate Removalists

Keep in mind, iMovers generally book out a week in advance; so now is time to secure your truck and ensure you align yourself with the best interstate removalists in Australia, get yourself an online quote or call  1300 221 314.

It’s packing time: See Complete Removals’ Professional Packing Tips.

Give yourself enough time.

A safe goal is to have 50 per cent of your house and shed packed a week before your M-Day. This gives you the last week to pack the rest.

Start packing some non-essentials like books, laundry cupboards, photo frames, storage areas and shed paraphernalia.

Remember, if packing your own boxes seems overwhelming, don’t worry, we can provide professional packing service for you and it can work out cheaper than you might think.

Put aside a box or bag with a few screw drivers, allen keys, hammer, short and long nose pliers and some screws nails. This box will be saved for when are ready to start dismantling items.

Flammables and combustibles.

Don’t pack the following items as we cannot legally move them. This includes

• Aerosols
• Fuel and diesel (including 2-stroke fuel)
• Cleaning products
• Gas Bottles
• Anything with the red flammable symbol on it

Insurance companies won’t cover fire or explosions caused by these products.

Boxes and Packing Materials

Don’t be tempted to use “FREE” boxes. They will just cost you more by making loading and unloading take longer and are less safe. Plastic tubs are expensive and often break when stacked, nothing is better than new professional moving cartons and we thoroughly recommend you use these for an interstate removal.

Ask a friendly iMovers salesman if he can do you a deal on your boxes, sometimes we run great specials!

If you missed part 4 of our interstate moving checklist for a complete list of who to notify your moving interstate and what to collect,  we thoroughly recommend you check it out.

Who to notify & what to collect

Letting everyone know your new address is one of the most important parts of moving. You don’t want to spend months cleaning up the mess from missing mail.

You can redirect your mail by lodging an application at your local post office, or you can lodge online.

Our contact list is very thorough, so take the time to go through it carefully. Also, spend some time over the following days thinking and noting down anyone particular to your situation that may not be on the list.

Where applicable, ask these companies and institutions for referrals to branches or offices in your new area, it may save you a lot time.

• All your bank, credit unions and building society accounts
• Credit cards and store cards
• Investment accounts
• Companies with which you have hire, lease or purchase agreements (your car, motorbike, etc.)
• Government support agencies, Centrelink, pensions and benefits
• Australian Tax office and Australian Electoral Commission
• Life, income, car, contents, building and other insurance
• Medicare, private health, hospital
• Financial planner, MyBudget
• Solicitor, accountant
• Austar or Foxtel
• Schools. Do you need to make enquiries about a new school

Interstate removals can be painful if you forget these!

• Home loan provider and stock broker
• Registration and licensing, courts
• Employers (check that they notify your super fund and WorkCover)
• Sport, social and hobby clubs
• Deliveries such as groceries, newspapers, magazines and other subscriptions
• Pre-booked maintenance such as lawn and garden care, pool cleaners and house cleaners
• Gym, library and frequent flyer providers
• Security company
• Online memberships such as eBay, PayPal, Facebook, Amazon
• iMovers: let us know your moving date so we can arrange your must-have Day Before You Move and Moving Day checklists.

Notify and collect your records from…

• Hospital
• Doctor, dentist
• Naturopath, chiropractor, therapist
• School, preschool, child Care, TAFE, university
• Vet
• Specialists,  special care

Once you have notified everyone you need to, you are well on your way to a stress-free, successful move. Well done and congratulations!, now check out part 5 of our interstate moving checklist for more great tips on packing your boxes.

If you missed part 3 of our interstate moving checklist on disconnecting/reconnecting utilities, maximising your sale price or bond return and creating a survival kit, we highly recommend you read it.

If you are moving soon and looking for an interstate removalist, you probably are starting to think exactly this.

Many of us choose the internet to get multiple quotes fast, hoping that something jumps out at us. You may even choose to pick up the phone and ring a few removalists but generally, nothing really stands out. If you are looking for a stand out removalist by getting 5 or more quotes, you generally won’t spend the time researching the companies you’ve selected.

Some interstate removalists truly care but many care about nothing, especially in Melbourne!

How can you find the best removalist company for you?

Spend a little extra time selecting prospects and ask the right questions!

Cheapest Price and Availability: A Recipe Set For Disaster

If you want to remove the risk of engaging a dodgy removalist and suffering a stressful move, kick those two reasons to the kerb and select your interstate removalist based on experience, integrity and the value they offer. Availability will come automatically if you organise your move enough in advance, one month is plenty.

The Solution

Ask them questions about

– Experience -  Not just experience of the guy on the phone but experience of the removalists that will handle your furniture, are they careful and why. Ask what the        removalists names are.
- Insurance- Ask exactly what it covers, proper insurance cost money so if it’s free, its worth more investigation.
- Recent testimonials- Ask for some from last week, ask for that persons phone number so that you can speak to them yourself. Many removalists will balk at this.
- Guarantee’s- Ask what guarantees they can provide about the quality of their removalists, ask about hidden costs and the likely hood of a last minute price change,  and lastly; ask if they will guarantee the dates they have agreed to. You will be amazed at the response you get to these questions.

All of your questions need to be open ended so you force the salesman to provide explanations instead of just “yes” and “no” answers.

How to Choose Your Removalist!

Choose based on:

- The value the company is providing you, competitively priced quality service.
- The certainty in a timely manner.
- The company that asks many questions about access to your properties.
- The company that is prompt in responding to your calls, emails and requests, if they make you wait when they are trying to win your job they will certainly make you    wait once they have won it.
- Choose the company that feels best,  that gut feeling you get about someone or something.
- Choose the company that adds that personal touch to your move.

Contracts and Booking Deposits.

Good interstate removalists take booking deposits and have contracts to sign. Time and time I get urgent calls from frantic people complaining  their removalists cancelled their move  at the last minute. They were able to do this because there was no contract, you should always enter into a contract with your interstate removalists,  if they don’t provide them, choose another!

First impressions are normally right; don’t let the feeling of a cheap price get in the way of that!

I finish with a great quote I read on the back of a bus ticket once “The bitter taste of poor quality lingers far longer than the initial sweetness of a cheap price”

If you are looking for a local furniture removalist,  here are the top 5 questions you should ask.

If you like this you may also like last weeks post called Profit By Screw: A Dying Trend!

iMovers is planning something truly amazing this year!

Our team is working on something that will change the way many interstate removalists across the country operate. Our industry is stale, and stuck in the past. Interstate furniture removals is dominated by a touch-and-go approach that desperately needs attention.

We live in a world now where change in business is imperative, these days the power lies in the hands of the consumer more than ever. If you don’t provide an excellent service, you are doomed.

iMovers intends to lead the way in 2012 and document it along the way on this blog.

Stay tuned if you want to stay up to date…..

There is a fraternity of interstate furniture removalists who travel the lovely highway between Melbourne and Adelaide. We see each other at the same road houses and we compete over buying the last egg and bacon sandwich in the morning. Sometimes they are fresh and sometimes they have the texture of cardboard, and sometimes they just look downright scary.

At a truck stop, if it’s not deep fried, it’s not on the menu……

The best thing about being an interstate removalist in Melbourne is we get to load and unload our freight and work off the cholesterol burger we just inhaled. It’s no wonder general freight truckies mostly look like Jabba the Hutt, they eat this food day in day out and never get any exercise

Australian truck stops need to promote better health and educate their most loyal customers….

The truckers of Australia.

Choosing an interstate removalist from your area has so many advantages.

1. We know how to operate in your area, moving obstacles like traffic, trees, parking and the lay of the land – geographical conditions. Potentially saving you heaps of money.
2. We are more likely to have a truck in your suburb soon, enabling us to reduce your travelling costs. It’s called back loading and can save you a packet.
3. We have reputation, and are bound by it to provide you the best. Just ask around and you may get a good report from someone who’s opinion you do trust.

iMovers runs back and forth from Melbourne to Adelaide and vice versa every week. If you live in Melbourne or Adelaide and need to move, choose an excellent and reputable furniture removals company that operates in these cities.

Choosing your best interstate removalist is not as simple as getting the cheapest quote nowadays, it requires more investigation and asking the right questions. Those questions are:

1. Do you own your own trucks?
2. Will I see your company name on the truck that arrives at my house to move me?
3. Can you provide me the names of your experienced removalists and how long they have worked for you? (keep in mind these guys are the ones handling your furniture)
4. Can I have the phone numbers of some of your past clients for a referral of your service

These questions will very quickly point out who you are really dealing with.

To speak to a friendly, highly experience removalist…..call Glenn today! 1300 221 314

Introducing Glenn Brown….again! He is now going by the Super Hero alias Solution Man. Glenn has been finding solutions to the most radical interstate removals problems of late and he is convinced that he is indestructible when it comes to moving problems. Our clients are raving about his Solution producing abilities.

If you are moving interstate soon and you think your move is different, or something is a real problem, try Solution Man.

We wish you could here the theme song!

I am going to explain just what backloading is. Backloading correctly should be spelled like this, back loading. It is when a removalist will pack more than one job in a truck or container at the same time.

The second meaning of back loading is when a mover does a job to one town and then loads another job in that town to bring back to a similar location to where the mover originally came from. Here is an example.

IMovers do a job from Adelaide to Melbourne , we have a client in Melbourne that wants to move back to Adelaide , that job is called a back load. The alternative to Back loading is direct moving, some removal companies call them single consignments. This is where we move you goods and only your goods to a location. Back loading is normally utilised when moving interstate or intrastate. There are advantages and disadvantages of both.

Advantages

1. It’s Cheaper. For some people the only option because of the price difference. Generally the price difference grows for smaller jobs.

2. Frequency. It’s made it possible for furniture removals companies like iMovers to set up weekly runs to places like Melbourne that we otherwise could not have making it more frequent and flexible for you.

Disadvantages

1. It’s more expensive. The reason is in order to send a truck interstate we have a certain amount of fixed costs associated with the trip that won’t change regardless of how much freight we are carrying. Costs like fuel, wages, accommodation and maintenance for the truck. If we have only one job on the truck that job has to pay the minimum amount that trip needs to break even and put a little profit on the top, whereas if we have more than one job on the truck or on that trip the minimum costs are shared between jobs.

2. It’s a slightly riskier option, we aren’t working around other jobs settlements and timing. Plus your goods will generally have to be packed tighter in a backload because the truck will be filled more often than not. You may be thinking what if my goods get mixed up with someone else’s? the answer is it can’t because of the inventory of items we use.
Be Warned – not all back loaders use inventories. If they don’t there is a very real risk your your awesome flat screen TV may find a home in another person’s house. Cheaper removalists are generally the types of removalists that don’t use them and the reason is kind of a catch 22. Inventories take time and cost wages, it’s the extra wages associated with inventories that push the price up slightly.

If you are thinking of moving interstate , why not give us a call today or click for a quote and find out more about your moving options

When you think interstate removalists or removalists in general you may picture the guy with the beard, the pot belly, a bonds singlet and tight rugger’s shorts he purchased when he was 40kg lighter. You would have been right 15 years ago, but that was the baby boomer generation of removalists. Now you have your Generation X’s and Y’s and they come in all shapes and sizes. We have clean cut guys that would pass for a David Jones Menswear salesman. We have skinny guys that look like they will snap in half if they picked up a shoe (but they can lift a piano). We have red heads, a removalist that is 6 foot 10 and even bald removalists. Amazingly though, the one that over and above all gets the best and most votes from our clients for outstanding customer service is Luke, and he has dreads. That’s right dread locks. He has first class removalist skills, he is charming and knows what it takes to impress clients.

It truly does go to show that these days you can’t judge a book by its cover.

In an attempt to match the endurance and fitness levels of our removalists our office staff have scheduled a date once a week on Thursday nights to go to the gym and get fit…..together as a team.  I love it. There is nothing like pumping iron or smashing calories to get the morale up in the team, this latest fitness craze has been spear headed by our General Manager Ben who has mentioned that he is not as fit as he used to be when he was working out in the interstate furniture removals trucks every day of the week. Ben was a lean mean removalist machine a few years ago but now he is more like a lean mean ex removalist marshmallow, sorry Ben…..only joking, I am sure you will hit your stride again. I have faith. Keep up the good work team.