Richard Howe runs Crate Crew, a moving crate and tote rentals business based in Oxfordshire, England. The idea came after his own house move, when he came across an American business renting reusable crates to people relocating. He thought it was a brilliant idea and wished he’d had one himself. After some research, he found very few UK companies offered tote hire for moving, so he decided to change that.
Crate Crew rents out strong, stackable, water-resistant plastic moving boxes and dollies. Richard delivers them to customers’ doors and collects them once they’ve moved, covering Oxfordshire and nearby areas including Swindon, Cheltenham, Gloucester, Reading, Warwick, Milton Keynes and Newbury. His main customers are people moving house, plus some putting items into storage. And every move done with crates cuts down on a lot of cardboard waste.
Customers book tote hire online through his Booqable booking page, where they pick a crate package, choose their dates and pay. Richard chose Booqable from day one as both his rental website and back office. Pricing templates let him set rates for each tote hire package by rental length, and security deposits help protect his stock while it’s out.
Handling moving day delays with order extensions
House moves rarely go exactly to plan. Completion dates slip, keys arrive late, and customers often need their crates for a few extra days. As a one-person tote rentals business, Richard needs a quick way to handle those changes without chasing payments by hand.
In the Booqable backend, Richard opens the order and changes the return date. Booqable recalculates the price automatically and updates the invoice to match. A Stripe payment link is generated at the same time, and he can email it to the customer using an automated template to collect the extension amount owing.
“My favourite feature is the back end where you can manually adjust bookings, add on extensions, and the flexibility it gives you to deal with issues or complications,” Richard says.
What order extensions achieve for Crate Crew:
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Extended tote hires are priced correctly every time, with no manual math
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Customers pay for extra days online through a Stripe link
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Richard can sort out changes in a few clicks, even on a busy delivery day
So when a customer’s move gets pushed back, it’s no longer a headache. Richard updates the return date, sends the link, and gets paid for the extra days.
Signing contracts at the doorstep with the mobile app
Richard handles every delivery and collection himself, so he spends a lot of time on the road. His crates are his main asset, and he needed a way to protect them at the handover without heading back to a desk to deal with paperwork.
The Booqable mobile app works as his mobile point of sale. Richard uses it to generate handover contracts and have customers sign them right on their doorstep. He can also check and update orders between drops, so his tote hire schedule stays accurate wherever he is.
“The ability to have the customer sign a contract on the door is huge for the security of my product,” Richard says. He adds that checking orders without going on the desktop saves him a lot of time.
What the mobile app achieves for Crate Crew:
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A signed contract for every tote rentals handover, collected on the spot
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Order checks and updates without opening a laptop
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Better protection for his crates and dollies
Richard no longer has to hand over stock without a signed agreement. And with his orders in his pocket, he can keep tote hires on track while doing every delivery himself.
Building a greener way to move across the UK
Richard built his website with no prior experience, just time and dedication. “The ability to track stock and bookings is really nice, simple, and the website builder is fairly straightforward,” he says. He also uses third-party apps and analytics trackers to learn more about his business, and customers like the new address finder at checkout.
Over the next few years, Richard plans to take Crate Crew beyond Oxfordshire, move into the storage market and add more products to rent. With online tote rentals, order extensions that handle moving delays in a few clicks, and a mobile app that secures every handover, Crate Crew has a solid base to grow from. It shows that a one-person tote rentals business can cover a wide area and keep cardboard out of the bin.
