Sharing a van: what it means for your dates and your price
A part load, or groupage, shares a vehicle with other moves. What that changes, and what it does not.
A part load is a move that shares a vehicle with other moves going the same way, and it is how we carry our two smallest load sizes. The trade calls it groupage; customers usually call it sharing a van. Customers ask about it more than almost anything else, usually in one of two forms: do I have to book a whole van for a small load, and if I am flexible on dates, does the price change? The answer to the first is no. The answer to the second is sometimes, and this guide is about what decides it.
What a part load actually is
A vehicle leaves when the loads going that way are ready, not when one customer's date arrives. That is the whole difference. On the larger sizes the vehicle is yours alone, so the loading day is the day you chose and delivery follows the driving time. On a part load your goods are one of several on the same vehicle, so we plan collection around all of them.
In practice that means two things you will see on your quote. Collection is a window of days rather than a single day, and on a part load the window is at its widest. Delivery is a range rather than a date, for the same reason: the vehicle completes its round. The window is not extra packing time. You need to be packed and ready from its first day, and we tell you the exact day and arrival time before we come, with the notice period your quote states.
A customer moving to Germany last summer needed a particular loading day, because the flat was being cleaned the day after. On the part-load size we could offer a window that ended on that day, but not the day itself. He asked the obvious question: can you not just do it on the one day? The honest answer was that the dedicated size could, because the vehicle would be his, and the part load could not, because it would not.
Why flexible dates can change the price
Last autumn a customer moving from London to Berlin on a part load asked me two things in one message: would being flexible on dates bring the price down, and could an empty return leg make the journey cheaper. Fair questions, and the mechanism behind both is the same. A part load is priced on the vehicle we expect to source for it. If you can give us a range of days and load at short notice, our logistics team can look for a vehicle already going your way with spare space on it, and spare space costs less to buy than a vehicle sourced from scratch.
When we find it, we pass the saving on. The price you were quoted for your dates is our lowest price across them and it does not go up; if a better vehicle turns up, our sales team gets in touch with the lower figure. That is the entire offer, and it is worth being precise about what it is not.
It is not a promise. Whether spare space exists on your route inside your range depends on what else is moving at the time, and sometimes nothing is. A customer moving to Lithuania was told exactly that after we checked the schedule: no moves going that direction yet. Telling you plainly is part of the service. A company that guarantees a saving from flexibility is either pricing the saving in already or planning to disappoint you.
When flexibility helps, and when it does not
It helps most when your goods can wait without costing you anything: a load already in storage, a spare room at a parent's house, a flat you are not being pushed out of on a particular day. A customer with a dozen boxes in Wales, moving to Germany with no rush at the far end, put them at his parents' house and gave us a long window. That is the ideal shape.
It helps least on the larger sizes, where the vehicle is yours whatever the dates, so flexibility buys little. And it is the wrong choice if you must be at the delivery address on a known day. A customer booking flights to receive her goods asked whether we could confirm the collection and delivery dates at booking. On a part load we cannot fix them that early. On the dedicated sizes we can, and that predictability is part of what the larger price buys.
What to have ready before you ask for flexible dates
Flexible dates only work if you can act on the call when it comes. Before you offer us a range, check you have these.
- A range of days, not a single date, across which your goods could be collected.
- Everything packed and ready from the first day of that range, because the call can come for the day after.
- Somewhere the goods can sit if the range runs long: a storage unit, a friend's garage, the flat itself if you still have it.
- Someone who can open the door at short notice at the collection end, and be at the delivery end across the delivery range.
- A clear view of what you need at the far end and when. If a fixed day matters more than the price, book the dedicated size instead.
- Then tell us the range when you get your quote. If we find the vehicle, you hear from us.