With price comparison sites becoming increasingly a part of all our lives, David Jordan interviews Rosie Rogers to find out more about one of the first in the business.

Price comparison websites are now a fact of modern everyday life, empowering savvy surfers to find the best deals on everything from car insurance to holidays, gas and electricity. Blanket TV ads featuring moustachioed tenors and furry rat-like animals have imprinted them indelibly on our minds and most of us now turn to them instinctively, much as we did to Yellow Pages in days gone by. Although it seems sites like gocompare.com and comparethemarket.com have been around for ever, most were launched in the mid noughties and so are fairly new.

Surprising then that way back in 1999 Rosie Rogers and her husband Rob Houghton, a telecoms expert, decided to set up a supplier comparison site for the removals industry, reallymoving.com, the first of its kind in Britain. “Rob was working for one of the major banks at the time and could see how the Internet was developing,” said Rosie. “He’d become a bit disillusioned with what he was doing and decided to leave and set up his own Internet company.  We realised that most of the successful sites at that time dealt with life changing subjects, marriage, babies, etc. but there was very little about moving house, so we decided that was what we’d do.”

The idea was to set up a site that people moving house could use to find everything they needed from survey reports and conveyancing to mortgages and of course; removals companies. 

After carrying out a scoping exercise, to decide what needed to be done, Rob commissioned a software company to develop a bespoke programme that would allow the project to get underway. Then the really hard work of finding suppliers began. “There was no easy way of approaching people, we just had to sit on the phone and speak to as many as we could,” said Rosie. At that time the Internet was still something of a mystery and people were understandably reluctant to divulge details about their businesses, especially their charges. We also had to make sure the companies we took on were of good standing and wouldn’t let our customers down.”

Eventually more and more companies were persuaded to join and soon began to reap the rewards of online lead generation. Today over 250 removals companies have registered as partner suppliers and receive their share of around 120,000 leads a year from visitors to the reallymoving site. To register, removals companies are asked to provide information about their service including their location, operating area, rates and any other relevant details. When a potential customer makes an enquiry through the site they are asked to complete a simple form giving the location of the property, the number of bedrooms, where they are moving to and any other relevant information. Reallymoving then sends an indicative quote from five of the registered companies in the customer’s area and passes the lead on to the removals companies involved. “We e-mail the moving companies straight away to tell them we’ve quoted on their behalf,” said Rosie. The quote is not binding and we encourage companies to contact the customer quickly and arrange a proper survey. As we all know, people often forget to mention the grand piano or what’s up in the loft!”

Gordon Rafferty, Director of midlands-based removals company, All Moves UK Ltd has been using reallymoving.com since 2009. “We use several Internet lead generating services but reallymoving is by far the best value for money,” said Gordon. We convert about 33% of the leads we receive which is I believe, above average. It’s important to follow up quickly and arrange to see the customer at the earliest opportunity, it’s no good just sending a quote and hoping for the best.  Reallymoving send us a text as soon as a lead is sent to our e-mail so we can get onto it straight away, even if we’re not in the office.”

Reallymoving charge a flat fee for each lead passed with charges varying depending on the region and the service required.  For removals; companies operating within the M25 pay £1.65, those just outside £1.35 and in the rest of the UK£1.25.

There is no doubt that when Reallymoving opened its doors for business in 1999 it was ahead of its time and since then several other Internet companies have come into the market.  Some have prospered and others have fallen by the wayside.  For reallymoving the hard work during those early years has paid off and the company continues to thrive as it develops its services to suit an ever changing market.  As customers increasingly turn from traditional ways of finding suppliers to online services the company looks set for a successful future. 

Photo (left to right): Clare Exact, Rosie Rogers, Mark Freire and Amy Howe