Moving Matters with Ed Davis of Davis & Mac

In this episode, Ed Davis, Director of Davis & Mac discusses how he became involved in the industry after helping an old friend who ran a successful hourly rated man and van business but was snowed under with work. It was suggested to Ed that he get a van to take on the excess work, so after pitching the idea to Dan Mac (who Ed had previously worked with in a recording studio) and the industry having such a low cost of entry, Davis & Mac was born in 2013.

We discover that Davis & Mac are a London based removals and storage company, running 5 luton vans, and they mainly provide house pack and moves, storage and interior installations, all local as the guys are not keen on overnights.

We discuss Ed’s lightbulb moment when he was involved in moving a crated chandelier for an interior designer from a storage facility to a super mansion in Virginia Water and discovering just how broad the pricing structure is within the industry.

We discover Ed’s story behind the multi coloured fleet of lutons, and it’s a long and very interesting one. Ed looked and began to analyse the branding and marketing of the industry and discovered that although it is a majorly masculine industry, Ed also noticed that his best and highest paying customers tended to be women. Ed also discovered that an angle that had not been done properly at that time was social media, but before tackling that Ed tells how their very grand crest came about. Back to Instagram and Ed tells how he continued to post photos of his fleet, and after 4 years of building a following Ed received a message from Binky Felstead (from reality TV show Made in Chelsea) who had been recommended Davis & Mac by some of her followers (of which she had 1.4 million at the time!). Having secured the removal for Binky, Ed and his crew arrived three weeks later in two newly wrapped vans in pastel colours, one in green and the other in pink, which Binky loved and posted about on her Instagram account.

We discuss that following on from Binky’s move Ed and his team have moved several high-profile celebrities as a result of social media and recommendation, even ending up in the national press when they were booked to move Emily Atack (who has 1.7 million followers on Instagram).

We discover that Ed’s challenges have been learning to be a boss, managing people (including hiring friends), controlling his emotions, and learning the industry.

We discuss that the one thing Ed would change from his past is to know his numbers, as although a gung-ho attitude led to a 3-year contract with a Self Storage Centre, it ended up costing them towards the end due to increased running costs as they began to expand the company.

We discover Ed’s highpoints, and it is not only the branding and marketing of Davis & Mac but also meeting others from within the industry.

We discuss that the change Ed would like to make to the industry is late finishes, which is not the industry’s fault but the house buying process. We also discuss the current driver and porter shortage.

We discover that the advice Ed would give to himself just starting out in the industry is knowing your numbers, be warned about pushing yourself to go into the higher end of the market, and due to past mistakes (which Ed has learned from), Ed states that he’s probably been through the most expensive university course just running the company!

We discuss that in the next 5 years Ed would like to grow the business further and is on the lookout for their own warehouse (as all storage is currently with Cadogan Tate) with a big yard space, which would allow Ed to double the fleet size, but he has no desire for lorries yet. Industry wise Ed believes cloud software will be key, Ed would like Elon Musk to automate the retrieval of containers from storage, but the big change Ed foresees is autonomous driving.

We discover that outside of work Ed likes to travel, although his last trip was to Sri Lanka in January 2020 just before lockdown and since then he has done nothing but work. Ed also enjoys a bit of DJ’ing too.

We discuss that during the pandemic Davis & Mac did an awful lot to help their local community, assisting Age UK Kensington & Chelsea to deliver food to the vulnerable in the area, with up to 1,000 deliveries a week!

And as always we end Moving Matters with two funny moving stories, both regarding divorce jobs!

Enjoy!

Links to Davis & Mac:

• Website
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram