Tech entrepreneur and former moving company owner Daniel Verblis has launched an innovative new service to enable moving companies to sell and deliver packaging materials direct to their customers without needing to hold stock or make unprofitable journeys.

Daniel, who now owns the online packaging company The Moving Home Warehouse, began developing the system four years ago and has been successfully operating a basic delivery service for trade customers on which the new service, called Boxshipper, is based.

“When I was running the moving company, I realised how much I was spending just delivering boxes to customers ahead of the move,” said Daniel. “I calculated it was on average about £30 per drop, that’s just on wages and fuel, so any profit from selling the boxes was lost.  Also, that hour or so could be spent working on a move, so the real cost is probably around £80. That’s a lot of money to lose even if you’re only doing a relatively small number of moves a month, but for the larger moving companies it can amount to hundreds of thousands, if not millions of pounds a year.”

Last year Daniel entered a national UK competition for budding entrepreneurs and won £150,000 in seed funding for his idea and technology.  “This was a terrific opportunity to move things forward,” said Daniel.  “I used the money to develop our technology and get everything in place to roll out our Boxshipper service.  Since winning the competition we’ve had further investment from a venture capital company taking the total to almost £500,000 so we’re well placed to really make things happen.”

Moving companies wishing to partner with Boxshipper pay a monthly fee starting at £29.99 for basic membership. There is also a premium version, suitable for larger organisations requiring bespoke tailored services such as branded boxes, storage holding and other marketing material.  According to the company, all products are of high quality from leading manufacturers and are extremely competitively priced. 

Unlike a traditional delivery service, Partners can simply log on to www.boxshipper.co.uk and have boxes and moving supplies dispatched directly to their customers the following day from the company’s national distribution centre in Bristol. This saves time and resources, and as the boxes are sold at trade prices, they can make money without having to lift a finger.

Daniel’s team at Boxshipper takes care of all the customer support, returns and customer queries. Partners can keep an eye on their activity via their own Boxshipper account dashboard, which enables them to view all transaction invoices and VAT receipts.

They can also apply for Boxshop, a free custom-branded online store that fits seamlessly into movers’ websites, allowing them to sell retail priced packing supplies directly from their own websites without holding any stock.

A number of the UK’s largest moving companies have been using Daniel’s earlier system for some time and the launch of Boxshipper is expected to attract enquiries from movers of all sizes in the coming months.

A short video explaining how the Boxshipper system works can be viewed here.

Photo: Daniel Verblis