How Our Moving Process Works

Stage one: the enquiry

The purpose of the first conversation is to establish two things quickly: whether your date is available, and roughly what kind of move this is. Four pieces of information do most of the work — where you are moving from including the floor, where you are moving to, an approximate date, and the size of the home or office.

If you already know about something awkward, say so now. A piano, a large fish tank, a treadmill, a marble-top or sandstone table, a five-door wardrobe that was assembled inside the room and will not come out whole — these change crew size and sometimes the vehicle, and they are much better handled at enquiry stage than discovered on the morning.

Stage two: the pre-move survey

This is the single most important step, and it is the one most customers skip when a mover offers a price over the phone. A phone price is an estimate of an unseen home. It is either padded to protect the mover or it is going to be revised once the truck is half-loaded.

The surveyor is recording two categories. The first is what is moving: large furniture, appliances, fragile items, high-value items, and anything needing dismantling or crating. The second is how hard it will be to get out: floor level, whether the lift can be used for a move, the size of the lift, the distance from the door to where a truck can legally park, and how many stairs or narrow turns are in between.

That second category is where most of the variable cost lives. Two identical 2 BHK homes can differ by thousands of rupees in labour purely because one is on the ground floor next to a loading bay and the other is a fourth-floor walk-up at the end of a lane a truck cannot enter.

Stage three: the written estimate

You get a document, not a number on WhatsApp. It states the scope, the vehicle size, the crew size, the packing material, the transit window and the total, with any separately chargeable items listed explicitly — shuttle vehicles for narrow access, crating for specific items, extra pickup or drop stops, storage, and goods-in-transit cover.

It also states what is excluded. Common exclusions across the industry are dismantling of built-in or fixed fittings, electrical and plumbing disconnection, civil work such as removing a window frame for a hoist, octroi or entry taxes where a state levies them, and waiting charges when a building denies access on the day. If you are comparing quotes from several movers, compare the exclusions rather than the totals — that is where quotes actually differ.

The moving cost guide explains each pricing factor in detail.

Stage four: booking and preparation

Once you confirm, the date is locked and a coordinator is assigned. At this point we hand you a short list of things only you can do:

• Arrange the society or building permissions — move-out approval, gate pass, service-lift booking, and a maintenance no-dues where the society insists on one.
• Confirm parking access at both ends, and tell us if a truck cannot reach the gate.
• Defrost and dry the refrigerator the night before, and empty the washing machine.
• Separate what you will carry yourself — documents, jewellery, medicines, laptops, chargers, keys and a change of clothes.
• Set aside anything that must not be packed, in one clearly marked place.
• Tell us about anything hazardous. Gas cylinders, paint, thinners, fuel and aerosols are not carried on a household load.

Stage five: packing and loading

Packing runs room by room rather than category by category, so that unpacking has a logic to it. Fragile items are wrapped individually and packed early. Cartons are filled to the top — a half-empty carton lets contents move, and movement is what breaks things. Every carton is labelled with the room it belongs to and what is inside.

Furniture is dismantled where it should be dismantled. Fittings go into a labelled bag taped to the piece they came off, because a missing bag of bolts is the most common reason a reassembly stalls at the destination.

Loading is a stacking problem. Heavy, square, stable items form the base. Soft goods fill the voids so nothing can slide. Fragile cartons go on top and never bear weight. The load is strapped before the shutter closes.

Stage six: delivery, unpacking and handover

At the destination, goods are checked against the inventory as they come off the truck — not afterwards. Cartons go to the room written on the label. Dismantled furniture is reassembled. The boxes you want opened are unpacked, and packing debris is cleared.

If something has been damaged, it is recorded in writing at handover while the crew is present. That record is what a transit-cover claim is built on; a photograph taken a week later is much harder to act on.

What this looks like for your kind of move

• House shifting — the process above, applied room by room to a home.
• Office relocation — the same stages, but sequenced around a cutover window and an IT restart.
• Local shifting — survey, pack and deliver usually collapse into a single day.
• Long distance moving — adds a transit window, route documentation and a second inventory check.