If you've noticed a sudden spike in undeliverable mail around May or June, you're not imagining things. Welcome to the Great British Moving Season—a four-month window when roughly 1.2 million UK households pack up and relocate, leaving your customer database looking increasingly like last year's phone book.
The numbers are staggering: according to the UK's Housing Market Report, peak moving months see over 100,000 transactions completed every single month. That's 100,000+ families changing their address, often forgetting to update their details with every company they've ever bought from. And here's the kicker—if they're in your database, there's a very good chance you're about to lose touch with them.
Why Spring? The Psychology and Practicality of British Moving
There's a reason estate agents get excited in February. British families overwhelmingly prefer moving in spring and summer, and it's not just about the weather (though dragging furniture in the rain is nobody's idea of fun).
The school calendar drives much of it. Parents want to move before the summer term ends, giving kids a chance to settle before September. Add in the fact that people want to enjoy their new garden in summer, and you've got a perfect storm of address changes between March and August.
Peak Moving Months in the UK:
- March-May: 35% of annual moves (pre-summer rush)
- June-August: 40% of annual moves (peak season)
- September-November: 20% of annual moves
- December-February: 5% of annual moves (the brave few)
The Silent Database Decay
Here's what typically happens to your customer data during moving season, told through the journey of a completely normal customer we'll call Sarah:
Week 1 (Mid-May): Sarah completes on her new house. She's exhausted, surrounded by boxes, and trying to remember where she packed the kettle. Updating her address with that online clothing retailer she bought from twice last year? Not even on her radar.
Week 2: Sarah updates her address with her bank, the DVLA, and her energy suppliers—the "essentials" that actively prompt her. She means to update everything else but, well, there's still 47 boxes to unpack.
Week 4: A parcel arrives at her old address. The new occupants, being lovely people, forward it. Sarah makes a mental note to update her details but forgets by the time she's finished putting up curtains.
Week 8: Your company sends a promotional email with a great offer. Sarah sees it, thinks "ooh, actually I need that," clicks through, sees her old address pre-filled at checkout, and... decides it's too much faff to update it right now. She'll come back later. (She won't.)
The Research: A 2025 survey by the Direct Marketing Association found that 73% of people who move house don't update their address with all companies. The average delay for those who do remember? Six months. And 18% never update at all—they simply stop shopping with brands that have the wrong address.
The Real Cost to Your Business
Let's talk money, because this isn't just an inconvenience—it's actively costing you revenue.
The Immediate Hit: Failed Deliveries
A mid-size UK retailer processing 5,000 orders per week told us their failed delivery rate jumps from 2.1% to 4.7% during peak moving season. That's an extra 130 failed deliveries per week, each costing an average of £42 when you factor in reshipping, customer service time, and the percentage who just request refunds.
Over a 16-week moving season, that's £87,360 in additional costs that could have been avoided with better address data.
The Sneaky One: Lost Customers
This is where it really hurts. When a customer moves and doesn't update their address, you're not just risking a failed delivery—you're risking losing them entirely. They get frustrated, they stop opening your emails (which tanks your sender reputation), and eventually, they just forget about you.
One subscription service we spoke to calculated they lose 8% of their customer base every summer, with about half of those losses directly attributable to address issues. For a company with 50,000 subscribers paying £15/month, that's £360,000 in annual revenue walking out the door.
What Smart Businesses Do Differently
So how do you fight back against the great address exodus? Here's what actually works, based on companies who've cracked this problem:
1. Validate at the Point of Purchase
This sounds obvious, but you'd be surprised how many companies skip this step. When someone buys from you, use address validation to ensure you're capturing accurate data from day one.
Type-ahead postcode lookup does two brilliant things: it catches mistakes immediately (no more "Mancester" instead of "Manchester"), and it subtly trains customers to expect accurate address data from you. Later, when they need to update their address, they remember you're particular about getting it right.
2. Trigger Address Checks at Suspicious Moments
Some behaviours scream "I might have moved":
- Customer hasn't made a purchase in 6+ months but is browsing again
- Email engagement dropped suddenly (they're overwhelmed with moving)
- Customer tries to change their email address (often done when moving)
- Previous order failed delivery (obvious one)
Set up triggers to prompt these customers to confirm their address before checkout. A simple "Hey, we noticed you haven't shopped with us in a while—is this address still current?" catches a huge percentage of outdated records.
3. Make Address Updates Ridiculously Easy
Your customer account settings shouldn't require a PhD to navigate. One retailer we know added a prominent "Update Address" button to their customer dashboard and saw address update rates increase by 64%.
Better yet, use type-ahead address lookup in your account settings too. If updating an address takes 30 seconds instead of 3 minutes of typing, people will actually do it.
4. Run Pre-Summer Address Hygiene
Here's a move that pays for itself: every March, run your entire customer database through address validation. It'll flag records that look wrong (syntax errors, impossible postcodes, known old addresses) before moving season even starts.
One e-commerce company makes this an annual ritual. They validate 280,000 customer records every March, typically finding 8,000-12,000 that need attention. A quick "please confirm your address" email campaign to those customers recovers about 60% of them before they become undeliverable.
Quick Win: Create a "Moving House?" page on your website where customers can easily update their address. Promote it in your spring email campaigns. You'd be amazed how many people appreciate the prompt—they want to update you, they just forget or find it too fiddly.
5. Use the Royal Mail Redirection Database
When people register for Royal Mail's mail redirection service (which about 40% of movers do), that data becomes available to businesses. It's not cheap, but for companies with large customer bases, it's worth investigating.
The catch? You need proper systems to handle bulk address updates, and there's a 3-4 week lag. It's not a magic bullet, but it catches a decent chunk of movers you'd otherwise lose.
The Prevention is Cheaper Than the Cure
Let's be honest: nobody gets excited about database maintenance. It's not sexy, it doesn't drive revenue this quarter, and it's easy to push it down the priority list.
But here's the thing—by the time you've sent three failed deliveries to old addresses, dealt with the customer service complaints, processed the refunds, and watched the customer stop opening your emails, you've spent 10x what it would have cost to catch the outdated address in the first place.
One subscription box company put it perfectly: "We used to think address validation was a cost. Now we realise it's what stops us haemorrhaging customers every summer."
Your Pre-Summer Address Hygiene Checklist
If you take away one thing from this article, make it this: don't wait for moving season to surprise you again. Here's your action plan for March (before the chaos starts):
- Validate your existing database - Get ahead of the problem
- Set up address triggers - Catch movers at checkout
- Create an easy update process - Remove friction
- Plan a "Spring Cleaning" campaign - Remind customers to update details
- Review your failed delivery process - Make recovery easier
The British moving season isn't going anywhere. Every spring and summer, millions of your customers will be packing boxes and dreaming of their new kitchen. The question is: will you still be able to reach them when they're ready to buy from you again?
Because the companies that get this right don't just save money on failed deliveries. They're the ones who stay connected with customers through life transitions, who show up in the new house as reliably as they did in the old one. That's not just good data management—that's how you build customer loyalty that survives even the chaos of moving day.