Unpakt Looks to Take a Load off the Moving Process
I’ve made two cross-country moves, and the process of finding movers, getting quotes and finally booking one wasn’t fun or easy. But a new Web site is looking to take some of that pain away.
Unpakt goes live today, and acts as a comparison pricing site for moving companies, much as Kayak does for travel and Progressive does for insurance. Created by the founder and CEO of FlatRate Moving, Sharone Ben-Harosh, Unpakt not only provides users with instant quotes, but also information about the movers, including customer reviews, and the ability to book immediately without an in-home visit.
“The entire Unpakt experience condenses the entire moving process, from planning and inventory to choosing a moving company, from several days into an hour or less,” said Ben-Harosh in a release.
From the site, you can create an inventory of all your furniture and number of boxes and then input your move date and start and end addresses. If you would like the movers to pack up your place, you can note that on the site, and there’s also an option to purchase boxes.
Once you’ve filled out all the required information, Unpakt provides a comparison of guaranteed prices from moving companies that have signed up to work with Unpakt. All moving companies use a fixed-rate pricing model instead of charging by the hour, and must go through a screening process to be included on the site. Based on the results, users can then book a mover immediately or save their search for later.
I quickly demoed the site, and it’s pretty simple to use. However, you do need to know the approximate measurements of all your furniture and how many boxes (including size) you’ll have, so you definitely need to prepare ahead of time. You can request an in-home visit, and Unpakt will inventory your house or apartment before the final move to make sure the quote is accurate.
For now, Unpakt is launching only in New York with six moving companies, but the company hopes to have 5,000 movers in 125 U.S. cities, and 750 to 1,000 international markets in the next year and a half.