7 ms·

The Future of Moving

40 points by elsewhen 7y ago

m463 7y ago
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.
- Aperocky 7y ago
  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).
- analog31 7y ago
  I wonder if it has something to do with getting a TEU in and out of a typical residential driveway.
  - ghaff 7y ago
    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.)
- imgabe 7y ago
  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.
  - stevekemp 7y ago
    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.
- duxup 7y ago
  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.
- stevenicr 7y ago
  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.
  - ghaff 7y ago
    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.)
    - stevenicr 7y ago
      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.
gfxgirl 7y ago
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-florida-crackdown-attorney-general/ 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.
thinkingkong 7y ago
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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynEjnebw8LA
- HenryBemis 7y ago
  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.
  - chatmasta 7y ago
    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.
    - ghaff 7y ago
      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.
nordsieck 7y ago
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.
- mherrmann 7y ago
  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.
  - serverQuestion 7y ago
    they go like hahaha sue me, and meanwhile we will hold on to your things until the courts have decided
    - mherrmann 7y ago
      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.
      - codingdave 7y ago
        Most people cannot afford to just go out and replace everything they own.
      - IMTDb 7y ago
        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.
syntaxing 7y ago
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.
- grawprog 7y ago
  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.
  - chatmasta 7y ago
bsder 7y ago
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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynEjnebw8LA
- 7y ago
The_mboga_real 7y ago
HN presents "The future of moving"
pjc50 7y ago
> 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?"
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- vageli 7y ago
  >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.
  - ghaff 7y ago
    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.
sj4nz 7y ago
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.

40 points by elsewhen 7y ago

m463 7y ago

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.

Aperocky 7y ago
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).
analog31 7y ago
I wonder if it has something to do with getting a TEU in and out of a typical residential driveway.
- ghaff 7y ago
  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.)
imgabe 7y ago
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.
- stevekemp 7y ago
  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.
duxup 7y ago
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.
stevenicr 7y ago
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.
- ghaff 7y ago
  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.)
  - stevenicr 7y ago
    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.

gfxgirl 7y ago

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-florida-crackdown-attorney-general/ 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.

thinkingkong 7y ago

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

HenryBemis 7y ago
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.
- chatmasta 7y ago
  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.
  - ghaff 7y ago
    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.

nordsieck 7y ago

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.

mherrmann 7y ago
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.
- serverQuestion 7y ago
  they go like hahaha sue me, and meanwhile we will hold on to your things until the courts have decided
  - mherrmann 7y ago
    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.
    - codingdave 7y ago
      Most people cannot afford to just go out and replace everything they own.
    - IMTDb 7y ago
      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.

syntaxing 7y ago

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.

grawprog 7y ago
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.
- chatmasta 7y ago

bsder 7y ago

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

7y ago

The_mboga_real 7y ago

HN presents "The future of moving"

pjc50 7y ago

> 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?"

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
vageli 7y ago
>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.
- ghaff 7y ago
  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.

sj4nz 7y ago

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.