When you need to move to a new house or move a piece of furniture, or any office stuff, you face the unavoidable problem of how to get all of your possessions from your old place to the new one.

We spoke with Raj Pahwa from Move My Stuff – a well-known removalist company in Melbourne. The company has been operating since 2007 with the aim of providing high-quality house and office moving services at an affordable price. They are usually the first choice when it comes to moving belongings from one house to another.

The company also has friendly staff and reliable movers who handle all belongings with maximum care, ensuring they use the most effective techniques and the highest quality equipment.

Raj, how did you get involved in moving services?

After doing my Masters in Information Systems from Melbourne, I was working with MYOB, a leading accountancy software company and used to live with my brother. 

I had previous business experience from my time in London and was actively looking to venture out into some kind of business that could provide value to people and solve a problem.  

In 2008 when I moved out from my brothers house to my own apartment, from my experience, I found the moving industry very expensive and it lacked professionalism. The operators didn’t seem to be very ethical or have any empathy towards customers. 

Most of the companies/ operators I spoke to at the time were either very expensive or absolutely unprofessional. I saw a gap in the industry and thought only if I could provide an economical that’s value for money and operate the business professionally and ethically, I will be able to add a lot of value to the industry. This is how I got into the business and gave birth to Move My Stuff. I still remember me and  Inderjeet Pahwa, my brother and Co-founder, sitting in a study of his house in Preston VIC and writing out a business plan. 

Is your business operating only in Melbourne? What was the longest distance for moving things?

We currently cover Greater Melbourne and entire regional Victoria. We also regularly operate interstate between Melbourne and Sydney, covering the Sydney Metro areas and parts of regional NSW.

We travel to Adelaide and other cities towards that direction very frequently. 

We have moved people from Melbourne to Perth few times in a truck and soon realised it was not the best of ideas. Now we use rail for all WA and other far away states. 

What makes your moving services better than other removalists?

We take pride in the services we provide. As part of the founding reasons, we had to make a service that is very professional, ethical and cost effective.  We realised that to be able to give our customers positive moving experience without costing too much, we had to keep our admin costs low, embrace technology and have continuous flow of job to have a minimum admin cost per move.

We were the early adopters of technology in the moving industry of our size. We invested in a CRM to give customers good booking experience and ensuring their details are stored correctly. 

All our trucks are fully equipped with all the necessary tools to make the move smooth. Back in 2010 when most removalists had manual tools to assemble and dismantle things, which added more time to the job, we introduced power tools that cut down the assembly and dismantling times by almost 75% saving people lots of money and making us much more cost efficient. 

We continued to invest in technology and in 2018 introduced our office intranet for better flow of information giving customers a better overall experience. In 2019 we launched a Live Price estimator making us one of the first moving companies in Australia to offer people a flat rate without going through the hassle of a detailed inventory. Our system has logics to understand customers requirements based on a very few questions its asks. Infact, customers can get a flat rate within 25 secs. 

Our training program is pretty unique to ensure that only the best people get in front of our customers. Any person joining our fleet goes through a rigorous training and around 4-6 months of supervised working before he can lead a move by himself. 

All our trucks are GPS tracked to ensure customers goods are never compromised at any stage.

In 2019, we launched Max which is Australia’s first ever pricing tool that gives our corporate clients instant pricing on their delivery requirements and a platform to book , edit and access job details and customer delivery proof signatures online. 

All in all, the level of service we provide which is backed up by our full satisfaction guarantee at so effective pricing is pretty hard to match. 

What is the process of moving residential materials?

Moving is officially one of the most stressful events of life. To ensure a smooth move, there are various steps and processes that people must do while relocating and it depends on their personal  circumstances.

Talking about the actual physical moving of goods from one house to the other is mainly good packing and good handling. Preparing the goods for the move is one of the most important things of the entire process. You should not only carefully pack the products, but also be very organised at this stage to avoid any chaos later. 

Dismantling what ever that can be dismantled is always a good idea as furniture generally is not meant to withstand moving and usually becomes weak after each move. 

Wrapping all the fragile items in packing paper and bubble wrap where required can protect goods in transit. No matter how carefully you move, the goods will get bumps during loading / loading and the actual transit, so its usually down to how good you pack things that matters. 

Most bigger furniture items and appliances must be generally wrapped Furniture moving blankets. I personally recommend and use the high grade 400GSM blankets that protects the goods nicely. Products fridges, couches etc can be shrink wraped on top of the blanket to provide a firm fit. 

Tip – Never shrink wrap directly onto leather couches as it can damage the leather. 

Is there anything that people should know about using any moving services? Eg. preparing things, etc.

 Experience helps and its always a good idea engage professional movers for atleast the actual move part. You can do a lot of preparation prior to the move to save on costs. We have written lots of blogs, articles and cheat sheets to help you prepare. They are all on our website.

Few things that one must prepare for the move are:

1. Let building manager/ body corporate know about the move. 
2. Book the moving lifts if required. 
3. Organise Parking for the truck on the day. Remember the closer the truck is parked, the cheaper it will become for you on the day. 
4. Keep smaller goods ready to go in boxes prior to the arrival of movers, maybe in the room closest to the front door or even in the garage.
5. Dismantle what you can before the movers arrive. The more you are organised, the quick and cheaper it becomes for you

Tip – When ever you dismantle anything, secure all its screws/nuts in a small bag and tape it with the actual item. This way you wont loose the screws. 

We have made lots of pre-moving guides that are available for free on our website, please use it.

Thank you Raj for sharing your thoughts with us!
You can follow up with Raj Pahwa at www.movemystuff.com.au