1st Move International is a Bristol firm trading as shipit.co.uk, and it handles international household removals from the UK to more than 6,500 cities and ports. The site is built around answering practical questions before you phone anyone: routes, container options, customs paperwork, and what it costs to ship a part-load versus a full house. Getting a free quote takes about a minute and does not demand your life story.

Services and shipping options

Sea freight is the core of what 1st Move International does, and the way the options are structured makes sense for different budgets. Shared container shipping is the headline service, where your goods travel as a part-load and you pay only for the space they occupy. For anyone moving a flat rather than an entire house, that distinction is the difference between an affordable quote and one that is simply not worth paying. Full-container options in 20ft and 40ft sizes are there for bigger moves, and airfreight is available for items you cannot wait weeks to receive. Furniture shipping and car shipping are also covered, so a household that wants the sofa and the family car on the same continent has both handled in a single booking.

Reassuring is how much of the awkward middle of an overseas move 1st Move International takes on itself. Customs clearance and documentation are handled in-house, which is the stage most people dread and the point where a cheap operator can leave you stuck at a foreign port with a form you do not understand. Packing is done on a palletized system, and that detail is worth noting: a palletized load is easier to move without damage and harder to misplace than a loose heap of boxes. These are the unglamorous mechanics of international removal, and 1st Move International leads with them rather than hiding them in the small print.

Destination coverage concentrates on the routes British movers use most. The USA, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Dubai come up as popular corridors, alongside European locations. Those emigration and relocation lanes carry the most UK traffic, so 1st Move International is focusing on the work it presumably does most often. Frequent practice on familiar routes tends to produce smoother shipments than a firm improvising on an unfamiliar one.

Tools and credentials

The tooling on the site goes further than removal companies typically bother with. Beyond the quick quote generator there is a WhatsApp home survey, which lets someone walk through their rooms on a video call instead of waiting for a surveyor to visit. That is a genuinely useful shortcut for people who are already half packed or working irregular hours. Container tracking, moving checklists, and cost calculators are all present too. The tracking system in particular says something about how 1st Move International runs its operation: a company willing to show you where your shipment is at any given moment is one that expects to be held to account, and that openness matters considerably when your possessions are crossing an ocean.

On credentials, 1st Move International is registered with BAR, the British Association of Removers, and states it has held that membership since 1997. BAR sets standards for the trade and provides customers with a recognised body to approach if a move goes wrong, so the affiliation carries practical value beyond a logo on a webpage. A relationship with the association going back that far points to a firm that has been operating for a long stretch, not a recent arrival testing the market.

Reputation record

The reputation record is broadly positive with some honest rough edges. On Trustpilot, 1st Move International sits at roughly 4.5 out of 5 across around 505 reviews, a strong score on a healthy sample, though one listing frames that as a 4-star TrustScore across about 481 reviews. Google, aggregated through Birdeye, is more muted at 3.9 stars from 180 reviews. RemovalReviews.co.uk shows 18 reviews that are mixed and include some sharply negative accounts, while RealReviews.io lists four verified five-star ratings and ScanMovers has a spread of customer commentary. International moving is a stressful, high-stakes service where one delayed container can turn a satisfied customer furious, so a spread from very positive to occasionally poor is consistent with an honest body of work on these routes. The majority opinion is good; the critical minority is specific enough to read carefully.

Contact details are easy to find, which matters when you are about to hand a stranger everything you own. A phone number, an email, and a physical address in Avonmouth, Bristol all appear on the landing page. A removals company that obscures its location tends to be a company worth avoiding; 1st Move International does the opposite, putting a real warehouse address in front of visitors. That physical permanence separates an established mover from a broker working off a laptop with no fixed premises.

There is one honest caveat. The gap between the Trustpilot figure and the scores elsewhere is worth taking seriously. Reading the negative reviews and working out whether complaints cluster around a particular route or a particular stage of the move is more useful than averaging numbers. It is also worth asking 1st Move International directly how it handles delays and damage claims, since that answer varies more than companies like to admit. The online quote is a starting figure, not a fixed price; international move costs shift with volume, destination and timing.

For a British household emigrating to the USA, Australia, Canada, New Zealand or Dubai, especially those with a part-load who have no appetite for full-container prices, 1st Move International is a credible and well-equipped option. Shared-container pricing, in-house customs handling, BAR membership going back decades, and a live tracking system put it in solid company on the UK international removals market. Run the quick quote, then call the Bristol office and ask pointedly about customs clearance at your specific destination and what the claims process looks like if something arrives damaged. Those two questions tell you more than any star rating.

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