CRN Impact Awards: Muval disrupts an industry with marketplace for movers

Brisbane-based Muval, a cloud marketplace that connects people looking to move with removalists, has been named as a finalist for the Emerging Innovator CRN Impact Award.

Muval, established in 2016 by James Morrell and Mahdi Chardi, was originally intended to be a SaaS product that helped removalists manage jobs better. 

Faced with an industry that was fragmented, unregulated, and inconsistently serviced, the founders realised that the space was ripe for disruption.

In response, they created the Muval marketplace, where removalists can list their services complete with price, availability and add-on services like pet transport, box packing and cleaning. 

People looking for removal services can then input their needs and get a list of matching removalists who are available on the needed dates and instant quotes for their specific requirements.

It is based on a bespoke code base, leveraging mapping technology, sms and email platforms in the CRM, analytics and API connections into slack and other messaging tools for customer service and marketing. Payments are processed through Stripe.

Everything being collated in a cloud platform brings added benefits over the traditional approach to moving services. Prices and dates can be loaded in real-time by the removalist, customers can share truck space to save costs - especially with interstate moves, and customers can choose whether they help out to reduce the amount of time they need to book.

Muval also offers an affiliate program that means builders, real estate agents, property managers and other affiliates can refer directly to Muval to "book a move" instantly through unique ID / automated referrals. 

For consumer peace of mind, removalists are pre-vetted and Muval offers its own insurance that covers contents from pick up to drop off.

The company also uses the data that it gains through the platform, in partnership with the University of Queensland, to provide insights into moving trends, predicting which cities will see net migration increases or decreases.

Instant booking has also meant families affected by domestic violence have been able to move quickly to new locations using the platform. 

By utilising data from Google and ABS, Muval can stay on top of consumer needs, targeting removalists in relevant areas to join. 

It now covers more than 100 cities across Australia and the company has plans for international expansion.

Adam Lockheed, owner of removalist business Sirius Removals, said that a “high percentage” of the company’s revenue now comes through Muval.  

“Due to the automated system that Muval provides, it means we don’t have to duplicate marketing and save multiple costs in this space. We also can utilise the admin system to test new locations or find customers in areas that we may not normally service,” he said. 

“The admin screens are simple and easy for us to create routes either as one-offs at special prices or ongoing routes at standard fees that customers can easily book online without having to speak to us. Muval has built in all the components we need to make sure we can accurately quote, so there are only rare occasions where we need to double handle the customer inputs.”