An international move is a more complicated kind of a move. While this means that you will have more miles to cross until you reach your destination, it also means other things. Thinking about how to transport your belongings from one place to another becomes much trickier with international moves. So, this is the reason why they usually cost more expensive. While calculating international relocation costs is useful, there’s a catch here – not all costs are fixed. You can influence the price of hiring the moving company if you know these tips for negotiating with international movers.

Do you need help in the first place?

International moves are trickier, as mentioned. They can involve air, ocean, and road transportation. Hopefully, you can understand the logistics that goes behind organizing this kind of transportation. But, the reason why you shouldn’t worry about this is that you can ship any type of goods as freight. If you leave this to a reliable freight forwarder, you don’t have to deal with the transportation of your belongings.

Things to consider when negotiating with international movers

The first thing to know before you start to negotiate with international movers is that the moving rates are not firmly fixed. Knowing this will give you the attitude that you need in order to achieve your goal. And the goal is to get a good deal because it’s good for your moving budget. But, before you start negotiating, there are several things that you need to consider.

• what is going to be the time of your move, and is it flexible
• decide what kind of services you’ll need from the moving company
• you need to choose good and reliable movers if you don’t, negotiating with international movers makes no sense

Knowing these things will give you a head-start and advantage before you even start talking about the price. You can use all of these to your benefit if you know how to do it.

Should you negotiate with long-distance movers or not?

Keep in mind that not every mover is worthy of negotiating with. What this means is that unfortunately, there are some companies that offer shady low moving rates. But, this doesn’t mean that they are reliable companies. Actually, you can pay this low price and end up without your belongings. You should go with a good, reliable company that you can trust, like Four Winds SA. Even if the initial price isn’t suspiciously low, this doesn’t mean that you can’t negotiate with long-distance movers and lower the price.

Know the opposite side

You should have at least a couple of potential movers that you are considering. In order to find them, you should:

• get a recommendation from someone you trust
• go online and check the reviews and ratings
• choose companies that are registered and have the necessary license

Now that you know these companies meet these criteria, you can start asking from moving estimates.

Get moving estimates

You should get moving estimates from several companies so that you can compare them. What you should know is the difference between a binding and non-binding estimate. The first one means that the price is fixed. The non-binding estimate, however, means that there is a possibility that the final bill is different from the initial estimate. So, you should try to get a binding estimate. Also, the company should know the amount and the type of items they’ll have to move. There are some household items that are difficult to move, and it might be more expensive to do that. That’s why you should get an in-house estimate so that the movers know what they’re dealing with. However, movers also do a video estimate or online estimate, but that’s the part of the business.

Compare the offers

There is not only one reason why you should compare the offers. Yes, the first one is to see which company has a better offer and to consider them a stronger contender. But, the second reason is to use the other offers to your advantage when negotiating with international movers. Use competitiveness to lower the price and you might succeed. Some movers would rather lower the price than pass on the business opportunity and let the competition have it.

Additional services

Other than the basic services, movers also offer additional services. And, they charge for them as well. But, they also use them to charge more costs unexpectedly. Instead, you should use this to negotiate with movers and lower the price.

• Know what kind of services you need and see how they charge. – why pay for packing services if you wanted to pack your items yourself? So, if you don’t want the whole package, say that you don’t want to pay for it.
• Offer them a deal. – if they don’t agree, you can help the movers when packing and try to get a better deal
• Make things clear at the start. – Do they charge extra for loading or unloading, or something else that you believe is already included in the price? Knowing this can save you from unnecessary unexpected costs.

Consider moving off-season

If you need to move with your family in a hurry, chances are that you can’t postpone your move. But, what if your move can wait for some other time when the price will be significantly lower? The thing is, the movers don’t have that much job during the off-season, as most people don’t like to move during winter. Also, the beginning and the middle of the week and the month are not that busy. So, this is when you should be able to get a good discount when negotiating with international movers.

Have some fun!

The worst thing that could happen when negotiating with international movers is that you’ll have to pay the full price. But, the best-case scenario is that you can have some fun and save a significant amount of money. So, let your inner salesman, out and let him have some fun.