Where did you get your packaging materials from when you moved house?

[bookwormthatturned]

DH is looking at business ideas and one option he's exploring is around online selling of packaging materials - the main market I can see, from how he describes it, is house removals.

BUT it's left me wondering how this would work - If you're using a removals firm would you not buy boxes etc from them? If you're doing a low cost DIY house move would you not make do with what you could find?

So, a question for all you lovely Mnetters - when you last moved house / put things into storage, where did you get your boxes from?

Thanks in advance for your help,

Ebay!

Hi,

I have moved lots of times and have sort moving materials - I think this sellers market is flooded. I would be cautious of investing in this sort of business unless you could undercut dramatically those already in business - search google and ebay (as previous posted suggested).

Also if new to business start ups - contact your local council for help, they can normal give you advice on organisations who provide advice on business plans and maybe grants.

Good luck with your future plans.

Is there anything that Ebay doesn't sell! Thanks for the feedback Sinking, I look forward to seeing if Ebay is what everyone else has used too ....

Thanks for the replay Maybump, I agree we need to really check out the market before DH starts up a business, so for starters am using MN for some completely scientific market research

eBay here too

I just asked my local supermarket to save boxes for me whenever they had deliveries.

I scrounged boxes from work. Also, at the time Asda were selling rolls of bubble wrap very cheaply so used that for really precious items and newspaper to wrap the rest.

Ours came from the removals firm (Pickfords), they did all the packing for us.

After we had unpacked, I offered the empty boxes and materials on Freecycle and they were snapped up.

If I ever needed more materials, I'd look on Freecycle first. Then probably a storage company or somewhere like Homebase.

Boxesdirect.co.uk. Think there were plenty similar.

Oh and I freecycled them on swiftly too.

ours were provided by the removal company. they took away what I'd already emptied when they finished, and I rang them a month later and they picked up the rest.

Teacrate
Office paper boxes
ikea blue bags - the most useful bags in the world lol!

Some scrounged from local shops and from work (when we first started packing stuff we wouldn't use / could do without for a few weeks) then 'bought' them from a local removal firm who then buy them back off you at the end if you want to take them back there.
Do see them (both offers and 'wanted') on Freegle quite a lot too. Can't see how you could make money from this, tbh.

I bought boxes and bubble wrap from a local storage company (Shurgard). I looked at Argos and IKEA and at using old boxes but I had a lot of books and console games and wanted something really strong. Used IKEA blue bags and strong black bags for squashy stuff.

I gave them away on Gumtree afterwards.

Ebay. I got enough boxes for about 50 quid.

For small DIY move - boxes from work and newspaper. Worked in a lab and we were always getting deliveries of consumables in large boxes.

For larger move, paid removal firm who supplied all packing materials.

We recently moved and we:

Scrounged some from Morrisons
Got some crates lent to us by friends
Got some on freecycle
Bought some from safe store (who now recycle and replace old boxes)

After our move I gave them all away on freecycle apart from the ones still sitting unpacked in the spare room and yy to Ikea blue bags - DP filled one with just wires, extension leads and electric tat

freegle, and the supermarts. The moving company also gave me as many as I wanted.

Aldi seem to have more boxes lying around as they have too few staff to tidy them away.

Those boxes that copier paper comes in are very handy and stackable for smaller lots, with good lids.

I would hesitate to pay much P&P for boxes ordered online.

I looked on eBay for second hand large boxes, but in the end bought a pack of 10 archive boxes from Argos. Not very big but did the job fine for us. Although slightly different situation as we didn't pack and move all of our belongings out in one go, so I used them to pack stuff, unpack at the new house then pack more stuff again as I was moving bits and bobs over every few days.

We are moving atm, man with a van type help, I have got big boxes from Costco and am going to but a tape gun to shut them for about a fiver from B and Q