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Lots of long distance movers work like this, they are just some broker middle-man often based in Florida that just makes the process more complicated and worse.

by s0rce 4y ago

bombcar 4y ago
Most long distance movers aren’t. There’s a local truck and guys who load it, and then everything is offloaded at some central depot and sent to another depot where it’s loaded on a different truck for final delivery. Door to door locked trailer is more expensive and harder to find unless you do something like pods.
- Groxx 4y ago
  Where "local truck" is "a vehicle that can fit at the location, unlike a semi" and "depot" is "nearby, where their semi is parked", sure. And they do frequently hire local help, rather than cart them across hundreds or thousands of miles. But it's not like they're going to post office / Amazon / etc "hubs" and changing vehicles along the way - the human labor cost and increased risk would be far too high, though pods might be feasible. The same semi and the same driver does 99% of the distance, and often hires their own helpers. The local shuttling and helpers are entirely reasonable and often unavoidable.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    The problem is each mode change is another chance for loss and damage. You’d often be better off palletizing everything so they can forklift it (though that has additional shipment risks).
    - s0rce 4y ago
      You can't really palletize a sofa or bed, you'd need to crate it and then its going to be more expensive. If you are moving $100k+ in equipment or art thats the way to go, for home stuff maybe worth a few k$, just put it on the truck or container and hope.
- s0rce 4y ago
  That hasn't been my experience, for a few interstate moves my stuff is on the same trailer at the delivery as it was when it was loaded, although it seemed to be combined with other peoples stuff and made multiple stops for the longer moves. In certain cases when the destination street was narrow it was offloaded onto a smaller truck for the last mile. Regardless, my experience trying to find movers is that there are a lot of brokers that will arrange either service and don't provide added value.

Lots of long distance movers work like this, they are just some broker middle-man often based in Florida that just makes the process more complicated and worse.

by s0rce 4y ago

Lots of long distance movers work like this, they are just some broker middle-man often based in Florida that just makes the process more complicated and worse.

bombcar 4y ago

Most long distance movers aren’t. There’s a local truck and guys who load it, and then everything is offloaded at some central depot and sent to another depot where it’s loaded on a different truck for final delivery. Door to door locked trailer is more expensive and harder to find unless you do something like pods.

Groxx 4y ago
Where "local truck" is "a vehicle that can fit at the location, unlike a semi" and "depot" is "nearby, where their semi is parked", sure. And they do frequently hire local help, rather than cart them across hundreds or thousands of miles. But it's not like they're going to post office / Amazon / etc "hubs" and changing vehicles along the way - the human labor cost and increased risk would be far too high, though pods might be feasible. The same semi and the same driver does 99% of the distance, and often hires their own helpers. The local shuttling and helpers are entirely reasonable and often unavoidable.
- bombcar 4y ago
  The problem is each mode change is another chance for loss and damage. You’d often be better off palletizing everything so they can forklift it (though that has additional shipment risks).
  - s0rce 4y ago
    You can't really palletize a sofa or bed, you'd need to crate it and then its going to be more expensive. If you are moving $100k+ in equipment or art thats the way to go, for home stuff maybe worth a few k$, just put it on the truck or container and hope.
s0rce 4y ago
That hasn't been my experience, for a few interstate moves my stuff is on the same trailer at the delivery as it was when it was loaded, although it seemed to be combined with other peoples stuff and made multiple stops for the longer moves. In certain cases when the destination street was narrow it was offloaded onto a smaller truck for the last mile. Regardless, my experience trying to find movers is that there are a lot of brokers that will arrange either service and don't provide added value.