Muval eyes 60 per cent expansion in 2022-23 as Australia’s ‘great migration’ continues

The young entrepreneur behind an innovative Brisbane removalist booking platform expects revenue to skyrocket to $30m this financial year as Australia’s ‘great migration’ ramps up.

IT was the frustration of seeing empty trucks traversing the country that sparked the genesis of one of Australia’s top ranked online household goods removalist booking platform.

Based in the Brisbane, Muval has become a part of what is known as the great migration - Australians relocating from the city to the country - and was formed to address wasted opportunities such as removalists unable to backload for their return trip.

Incorporated in 2016 and fully moving two years later Muval, which is owned by chief executive James Morrell, business partner Mahdi Chardi and a few other small shareholders, has 40 employees and there are expectations of adding more people to the team.

Mr Morrell said the original aim of the company was to disrupt the sector and create something that would take the stress out for households and removalists.

Simply, the platform links customers to the right removalists who in turn pay a commission when they get a job.

Muval chief executive James Morrell whose business is forecasting almost 60 per cent growth in 2022-23.

Mr Morrell said in 2021-22 they completed $19m in bookings on the platform.

“We’re looking to extend that to $30m this financial year and we are aiming to increase our bookings from 21,000 by the same amount (58 per cent),” he said.

And with “moving season” well under way with typically around two-thirds of all moves take place between October and March as more than 1.5 million Australians relocate it will be a busy end to the year. Australians are likely to spend more than $2bn moving over the summer with December 16 and January 23 the busiest day for removalists.

Originally focused on household interstate relocations, Muval has branched out into local and overseas moves and other services such as insurance.

It has also produced the Muval Index in partnership with University of Queensland demographers to form the most up-to-date national moving data to identify the latest internal migration trends.

“Packing up and moving house is a big decision but Australians have shown that relocating is one way they are fighting back against the rising cost of living,” Mr Morrell said. “Unwilling to sacrifice the lifestyle they have become accustomed to or refusing to give up on their dream of owning a home, Australians are choosing to pack up their lives in search of a better and more affordable life.

“The regional trend, which started a couple of years ago with the rise of remote working, is continuing ... as regions offer an affordable option for many Australians.

“Once the domain of retirees or niche groups, our data is telling us that tree and sea changes are becoming a common move for all kinds of Australians in search of a cheaper and better lifestyle.”

Mr Morrell said Muval was born from the experiences of Mr Chardi’s own removal company - Move Me Group.

“Mardi would send trucks interstate and they’d comeback empty and being the entrepreneur he is he thought it was a wasted opportunity," he said. “He wanted to use technology somehow to try and find customers so they would not come back empty.”

From Brisbane’s western suburbs, Mr Morrell, a former St Peters Lutheran School student at Indooroopilly completed degrees in public relations and social science at the University of Queensland. “Out of uni I taught myself how to code and stated a web development web design business, plugging away on my own projects like Muval,” he said.

“I was the web developer for Chardi’s website for his removal business, and he reached out to me and we kicked around ideas on how we could use technology to solve that problem.

“We created this company but we were involved in other businesses at the time and I was living in the US. So when I moved back we decided maybe we should give it a go.

“People refer to it as backloading. We have created a website where removal companies can list where they have space when they are travelling interstate and customers could go on that website and book it in.

“This means that if the customer has a bit of flexibility you could get great rates because it's the removal company’s return trip”.

Mr Morrell said Covid was a disruption but also an opportunity for the fledgling business. “When we started to shut down we were really worried because it wasn’t clear whether people could move house and what the restrictions were,” he said. “Over time it became clear you were able to move house and bookings came back. We were actually the No.1 information resource for people moving interstate because we pulled all the border restrictions and other information from interstate. “A lot of people found us that way,” He said.