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Online competitors move in on shippers
A renter packs his things into a UHaul.
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KAI RYSSDAL: Moving can be a nightmare. The packing and unpacking. The changing of addresses. All of it just adds up to one big, fat bad experience. So nobody does it unless they have to. Throw in falling house prices and a still-weak job market and more people are simply staying put. That means moving companies have fewer customers nowadays. But it is not just the recession that's causing headaches for traditional movers.
Lenora Chu reports.
Lenora Chu: When Jerry Eldred had to relocate from New Hampshire to Texas, his new employer gave him a shoestring budget for the move.
Jerry Eldred: I definitely could not do one of the Cadillac moves, Mayflower, those kinds of companies.
The quotes he got from full-service movers came in at seven grand and up. So he hopped on uShip.com. That's the online site where movers bid for your business. Eldred listed the contents of his three-bedroom house and stated his price.
Eldred: So I put my lowball figure on there, the lowest I figured somebody might possibly be willing to take.
The bids started coming in. Eldred read the online reviews of companies who submitted quotes and eventually chose a local trucker. Eldred says he was nervous at first about trusting his belongings to someone he found on the Internet. But he met with the trucker first before signing on the dotted line. The final price? A touch over three grand. And his stuff arrived safe and sound.
Eldred: So for a lot less money I got a lot
faster delivery. That was kind of the amazing thing to me.
And it's been amazing for uShip.com. The company's revenues have doubled over the last year. That's despite Census data that shows fewer Americans moved in 2008 than at any time since 1962.
uShip CEO Matt Chasen.
Matt Chasen: So I think people are just changing their behavior and going to places like uShip where they can try to get better pricing and more competitive quotes.
Enter the new landscape for the moving industry, where buyers and sellers connect on the Internet. Steve Weitekamp is president of the California Moving and Storage Association.
Steve Weitekamp: Ten years ago the average consumer went to the Yellow Pages, opened up the section that said "Movers," and the traditional movers had the large ads. Now most people go onto the Internet, they type in movers and they get all kinds of options.
Traditional movers are having to get creative to find new customers and inspire loyalty. Especially when plummeting house prices mean people are staying put.
In Santa Monica, Anne Burkley is watching movers roll a BBQ grill into her new home. Her mover, Ram Katalan, is supervising a half-dozen workers on the job. He says his full-service company, Northstar Moving, has seen year-over-year growth screech to a halt.
Ram Katalan: These days we're about a 12 to 14 percent decrease from previous year.
So Katalan is going the extra mile on branding and service. He's greening up his moving trucks with biodiesel, slashing prices when customers ask for recycled boxes and putting pets in a luxury daycare free of charge during a move.
Katalan: We understand that being a moving company is not just about moving boxes from one place to another. It's about making sure we address all of our clients' needs.
Katalan's not worried about the online competition, he says, because he has loyal customers like Anne Burkley. Burkley has hired Northstar before, and she says she'd do it again.
Anne Burkley: Putting everything you own in the hands of some company that you don't really know is sort of, for me, uncomfortable.
Burkley says moving is too personal to trust to the Internet.
In Los Angeles, I'm Lenora Chu for Marketplace.
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Mr Chasen,
I took the 1st 10 Carriers as they appeared at the link you provided and here's what I found.
Took the 1st 10 listed at the link provided
7 Carriers have no Motor Carrier authority
3 were transporting months before having authority
Top U.S. household movers by uShip Sales Rank: http://directory.uship.com/householdmovers/nationwide/.
Company: OnTheMoveforyou
Member Since: 2/17/2006
MC number 669495
HOUSEHOLD GOODS COMMON CARRIER
GRANTED 03/17/2009
Transporting for 37 months from Uship prior to having MC authority
Company: SOUTHERN MARYLAND MOVING AND STORAGE LLC
Member Since: 8/14/2006
MC number 592784
HOUSEHOLD GOODS COMMON CARRIER
GRANTED 02/23/2007
Transporting for 8 months from Uship prior to having MC authority
Company: KENDALL TRUCK RENTALS INC
Member Since:03/10/08
DOT Number: 878203
No Motor Carrier authority and displaying a
Pirated DOT # on profile
KENDALL TRUCK RENTALS INC doesn’t perform moves. They rent and lease trucks
Company: PENSKE TRUCK LEASING CO LP
Member Since:03/21/04
DOT number 327574
Pirated DOT # on profile
Penske doesn’t perform moves. They rent and lease trucks
Company: WORLD CLASS MOVING COMPANY
Member Since:09/12/08
MC number: 524943
NO Authority
HOUSEHOLD GOODS COMMON CARRIER
REINSTATED 09/12/2008
REVOKED 10/15/2008
Company: QballExpress
Member Since:03/22/06
No MC authority
Company: Action Transport
Member Since:06/24/08
MC number: 654989
MOTOR PROPERTY COMMON CARRIER
GRANTED 08/29/2008
Transporting for 2 months from Uship prior to having MC authority
Company: Artist with van/truck
Member Since:05/30/04
No MC authority
Company: LA Pack Pros
Member Since:12/11/08
Business Type: Freight Forwarder/Broker
No MC authority shown on profile
NOT LISTED ANYWHERE ON
SafeStat
Contains data as of July 24, 2009
Updated Monthly
Company: FAR AND WIDE MOVING LLC
Member Since:12/13/04
HOUSEHOLD GOODS COMMON CARRIER
DISMISSED 08/21/2007
UShip, as with most other corporations isn't going to change until they stop making money or a law makes them change.
If you make your decision based on cheap prices, you will remember the service long after you have paid the price.
We are Cincinnati Movers on UShip with perfect feedback. We are often more expensive than the other guys who think just because they have a pick up truck and trailer they can play mover. The customer still chooses them when it saves $500 or $600. Then they have a horrible experience.
Sadly, it is just as much the customers fault when they stake their moving day on the cheapest bid. Your life is going into the back of that truck, is it worth the risk of losing it all to save a couple hundred dollars?
A few years ago we used a site similar to uShip to get bids for a very simple move from one part of San Francisco to another. We chose the lowest bid. What followed was a horrible experience, with the moving company pulling a bait and switch on us, threatening to not refund out deposit if we didn't use their service (illegal, according to the CA Public Utilities Commission), and ultimately charging us 2 1/2 times the quote. Our mistake was that we didn't further research the moving company. If we had, we would have found numerous complaints, nightmare stories, and a BBB F rating. While I agree that services like uShip can be useful, I think the lowest bid process motivates movers to underbid and try to make it up on the back end. We learned a valuable lesson, which I hope others will heed, always research a business before using them. Checking the BBB, any State or Federal licensing agencies that may apply, and even searching the Internet for "COMPANY NAME sucks" or "COMPANY NAME complaints" can provide valuable information.
To “K R†and stopillegaltrucking.com:
We, at uShip, respect your stated intention of helping to educate the public regarding transportation laws, however your focus on uShip is misguided and your assertions are simply wrong.
When uShip was founded in 2004, one of our main goals was to empower consumers by creating the first transparent, unbiased feedback rating system in an industry that has historically lacked accountability. Our unbiased feedback system helps people find the very best movers and it incentivizes movers to provide the best customer service. The fact is that over 98% of feedback left on uShip is positive and less than 1% is negative (remaining ~1% is neutral) – I challenge anyone in the industry to match that level of customer satisfaction.
We give customers the tools they need to evaluate moving companies including extensive articles and guides about how to research moving companies (e.g. http://www.uship.com/moving/articles/investigating-moving-companies/), and we help customers verify information provided by moving companies by linking mover profiles directly to the government website that is set up exactly for the purpose of tracking the operating authority and legal compliance of movers. Here are links to the profiles of our top U.S. household movers by uShip Sales Rank: http://directory.uship.com/householdmovers/nationwide/.
It is important for consumers to understand that they have certain rights and responsibilities when they contract with a mover in the U.S., which are described on this helpful government website: http://www.protectyourmove.gov/. uShip can provide you with a variety of tools to help you shop for competitive quotes from thousands of movers, research and evaluate the movers that bid on your move, and even manage and track your move with GPS; however, whether you find a mover on uShip, Google, or any other directory like the Yellow Pages, it is ultimately your responsibility to protect yourself when you enter into a contract with a mover. While uShip does not and, in fact, cannot legally qualify movers on your behalf, we do perform identity verification and fraud detection as well as provide you with tools that make your required due diligence as easy as possible.
uShip utilizes sophisticated systems to protect our users against fraud, and reported fraud on our site is far below moving industry averages. We stand behind our service with our “Ship with Confidence Guarantee†(http://www.uship.com/learnmore/guaranteelearn.aspx), and fraud is so rare that since we launched our Guarantee 2 years ago over $70,000,000 has transacted on our platform and we have had fewer than 5 claims.
Please decide for yourself by visiting stopillegaltrucking.com, where you will find the ramblings of a small group of disgruntled, suspended uShip members that are trying in vain to tarnish our excellent reputation. Then head over to uShip and read over 23,000 unbiased stories left by our members about their uShip experience: http://www.uship.com/community/stories_directory.aspx.
I am posting this response only to set the record straight, and I will not get dragged down into a the same debate here that we have had with stopillegaltrucking.com countless times. Even after being told so by the U.S. D.O.T., they refuse to acknowledge that uShip is 100% compliant with both the letter and the spirit of all applicable laws. This is not an appropriate forum for such a debate, and I’m sure nobody appreciates their misuse of this website to spread false claims about our company. Anyone else wishing to learn more about uShip and our policies can contact legal@uship.com or join a discussion on our site’s forums.
Regards,
Matt Chasen
Founder and CEO, uShip.com
For the full story concerning UShip, Google UShip or UShip Scams.
Visit http://www,stopillegaltrucking.com
as well. There, you will find the meat and potatoes (facts) about UShip and why it may be cheaper in the beginning and cost you more than you ever dreamed of, in the end.
Could it be that since a MOVER'S Federally mandated credentials aren't verified by the web site itself that 1000's of people post ficticious information on their respective profiles in order to win bids?
No overhead equals less cost to the Shipper. Shippers don't have a clue on how to check out a Carrier to see if they are dealing with a legitimate Carrier/business.
So you thought that that pickup truck driving Carrier was a legal business, think again! Even pickups when used in a For-Hire capacity across state lines are required to follow the same rules as semi's!
Still want to use that CHEAP price you were quoted and can ultimately accept? Go ahead and let something go wrong. You'll have NO recourse. Because it's strictly a civil matter and UShip will NOT come to your rescue. They declare themselves a NEUTRAL VENUE.
UShip simply pockets the full amount of the initial deposit that you make when you accept a bid. It creatively worded in the User Agreement to make you think otherwise.
Visit http://www.StopIllegalTrucking.Com
for free assistance and some of the comments made by victims of UShip. New information gets posted often, so check back frequently.
Check out the Mug Shots of convicts, police reports, the FBI investigations both past and present. It's all listed on Stop Illegal Trucking for your convience and in support of their cause of trying to educate the public. The best part is, it really is FREE and there are absolutely NO catches of any sort. It doesn't get any better than that!
How often do you find a group of people willing to help you research your prospective Carrier(s) before you enter into any agreement? They even provide you the black and white proof and/or the links to the information from the Government's own Federal and/or State web site!
Use UShip at your own risk. The User Agreement clearly states that the Carriers are NOT screened. Anyone can sign up and take you for a ride.
By the way, I am NOT a competitor of UShip, a Carrier or even in the moving business. I'm simply an average citizen that is attempting to help my fellow Americans help themselves.
Thank you for your timely and insightful report on the moving industry. On a global scale the industry has also radically been transformed with the almost elimination of the family moving company in many parts of the world. Our company , Move One Relocation is a great example of this trend. In 1990, I moved from the US to Eastern Europe and eventually started Move One in 1992. Since then we have hit this trend and have expanded to 42 countries and watched not necessarily the internet but failed Cartels, the rise of global relocation companies and change in buyer habits virtually destroy all European family owned companies.
Regards
Curt Clements
Move One Relocations
http://blog.moveone.info
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