Movers: The Most Undervalued Growth Opportunity in UK eCommerce

If you work in eCommerce, you already know how hard it is to find moments where customers are genuinely open to discovering new brands.

But there is one moment that’s predictable, high value and high‑volume, and massively underutilised, where brand loyalty resets, spending spikes, and people actively search for help.

Space & Time recently published our white paper on “Engaging the Mover” where we tap into our 25 years of working with house builders and brands that provide products surrounding the industry. From pet blankets to insurance and furniture to the garden. We have the data and the insights to turbo-charge your brand into capitalising on this exceptional, life-changing moment.

In this article, I discuss where eCom brands can really move the needle within this vibrant and varied segment.

When people move home.

The “Mover” isn’t just a demographic segment. It’s a life stage filled with high emotion, high spend, and high openness to switching. And it’s happening at scale, with over 1 million UK homes change hands each year, which means thousands of new ‘ready-to-buy’ households enter the market every single day.

For brands in Home & Garden, Utilities, Subscriptions, Furniture, Interiors and Pet Brands, this is one of the biggest (and most overlooked) acquisition + retention opportunities in the market.

Let’s look at the details.

The Mover Journey: A Ready-Made Growth Engine

Most brands treat the moving process as one chaotic blob. In reality, it’s three distinct, predictable commercial phases, each with its own triggers and entry points.

1. Before the Move, The Research ‘Run’ (3–4 Months)
   This is where consumers are:

• Comparing products and prices
• Searching obsessively for advice
• Shortlisting brands
• Planning purchases they’ll execute later
• Looking for reassurance and clarity

For you, this is a golden window to:

• Capture future demand via Search & Shopping
• Build brand presence and preference early through Social & Video
• Provide value through helpful guides, checklists and tools
• Collect first‑party data, ahead of your competitors

This is where Home & Garden planners, broadband switchers, insurance evaluators, and furniture shoppers are most open to inspiration. They are re-imagining their whole life in their new home.

2. During the Move, The Urgent Sprint
Now the pace accelerates. Movers make fast, emotionally driven purchases to solve immediate problems.

This is where you edge-out your competition by:

• Reducing friction
• Providing delivery certainty
• Offering tailored bundles
• Matching the customers feeling of urgency in your messaging
• Being clear about availability and setup support

Think:

• “Delivered by the weekend. We’ll install it.”
• “Move‑in essentials bundle.”
• “Activate broadband on move-in day.”
• “Settle your pets in your new home”

Convenience compounds with value into a conversion multiplier.

3. After the Move, The ‘New Normal’
Once the dust settles and all the boxes are unpacked, consumers focus on comfort, lifestyle, and upgrades, both planned and unplanned.

This is where retention and long-term value can skyrocket.

Now focus your drive on:

• Subscription adoption
• Cross‑sell for ‘complete the room’, seasonal refresh and get the garden ready for summer
• Protecting what’s become dear to you (insurance and utility add-ons)
• Habit‑building comms that help you align to the customers new needs and patterns

Brands that stay relevant after the move will win the growth game.

What Movers Data Tells us to Optimise For

Your customer doesn’t worship one value, and the data shows what influences them most:

Across all audiences:

• Price and quality are the top drivers
• Style/design is a strong secondary factor

By cohort:

• Quality beats price for 25 – 34s and higher-income households
• Sustainability matters more for younger and affluent movers
• Word‑of‑mouth matters more for GenZ
• Similarly, reputation matters more for older and homeowner segments

This means your creative and messaging should be optimised and flexible and the customer interactions with it should be measured. This means you can confidently adapt as required.

Support trust and value pillars mutually rather than exclusively:

1. Value & convenience for price-conscious segments
2. Quality, durability & sustainable proof for higher-value audiences

Use clear, selective trust signals:

• Reviews, awards, ratings for homeowners
• Peer stories & User Generated Content for younger movers

Reframe sustainability into meaningful values:

• “Keeps you warmer for less”, not just “good for the planet”

Get The ‘Media Advantage’ Right Now

Space & Time have over 25 years of experience within the housing and movers’ marketplace and the tools to reach Movers across the entire journey with precision, without wastage.

We have the data, insights and tools to create the ‘perfect storm’ for full‑funnel performance:

• Before: seed inspiration and capture intent
• During: harvest demand
• After: engineer retention
• We have engineered AI creative engines that optimise messaging and predict its effectiveness, helping you save time and money

But what do you need to do right now?

The Top 10 Things Ecommerce Brands Must Do to Win the Mover Opportunity

Here’s your playbook:

1. Plan your entire strategy to target before, during and after the move
2. Create mover‑specific landing pages, offers, bundles and checklists to show you’re their ideal moving partner
3. Build empathy in your creative execution. Not just ‘value’, proof
4. Operationalise convenience: delivery slots, free installation, immediate activation and availability of products and services
5. Make sustainability about comfort and savings, not just a virtue or a ‘nice to have’
6. Turn word‑of‑mouth into a performance channel with UGC, EGC and referrals
7. Scale through compounded marketing signals; paid and earned media channels
8. Target trust signals by audience. Don’t assume one size fits all
9. Connect your first‑party data to ad platforms to achieve ‘personalisation per phase’
10. Use data and pivot. It’s a long journey for movers and ‘last click’ doesn’t measure the whole road

This is the formula. But only a few eCommerce brands are executing it the right way.

Space & Time Know Your Audience

Movers represent one of the most predictable, high-intent, high-spend audiences in the UK. Yet most brands still treat them like an afterthought or assume they are too busy to buy from you.

Brands that understand when ‘now’ starts for movers and build mover-first growth engines, will win at market share and growth.

Moving home isn’t just a consumer milestone. It’s one of the most powerful growth trigger eCommerce brands can tap into.