OSS World Wide Movers are one of the largest international moving companies in Australia. Established in 1970 and remaining to this day a specialised “international” mover.
OSS is a long-established international moving company in Australia and has fully-serviced customs and quarantine bonded warehouses and offices in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane together with long-term associates in other major cities. OSS commenced operations as Overseas Shipping Services in 1970 servicing post-war European migrants to Australia who would frequently travel back to their homeland taking whitegoods, televisions and other spoils earned from their hard work in their new country.
Invariably these items would be left with the family in Greece, Italy, Portugal, Yugoslavia, Turkey etc., and then after a short holiday, they would return back to Australia and commence working seven days a week so they could repeat the same cycle in two or three years time. This market remained extremely strong up until the mid-1980s and then by that time OSS had branched out into full-service international moving servicing traditional links between Australia and the UK and New Zealand as well as the emerging association with South East Asia and particularly migration from Hong Kong in the lead up to the handover of Hong Kong by the British back to the Chinese Government in 1997.
The owners of OSS are Andrew Sorrell and Bob Wray, Andrew being a ten-pound sponsored English migrant who moved as a young man to Australia in 1969 and was the first employee of OSS Melbourne in 1972.
Bob Wray was a general insurance broker who had OSS as a client from the time OSS was first set up by Richard and Gayle Overton in 1970, things progressed to the point that in early 1984 Bob decided like the Remington Man that he liked the client so much he purchased fifty per cent of OSS Sydney.
In 1998 Andrew and Bob acquired all of the remaining shareholdings for Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane and have remained equal partners ever since.
OSS celebrated the Official Opening of its new Sydney office and warehouse in a substantial modern facility at Kings Park in Sydney’s west in late August 2013.
OSS also occupies modern offices and warehouses in both Dandenong South in Melbourne, and within the Port of Brisbane Precinct in Brisbane.
Being a migration country Australia has a reasonably even spread of inbound and outbound household goods and personal effects tonnage, the primary migration areas being from the traditional areas of the UK and New Zealand as well as increasingly from South East Asia and the Middle East. Outbound tonnage also travels to the traditional areas as well as an increasing number of Australian professional architects, engineers etc., always in demand, travelling to the developing parts of Asia and the Middle East as well as the USA and Canada.
As Bob Wray says “The secret to the success of OSS has been specialisation from Day One in the international side of moving, as a consequence our staff are well-trained and our crews are experienced and consistent as they are 100% of the time focused on international packing, handling and stowing”
“We have always spent a lot of time on human resources and staff training” says Andrew, being a strong supporter of the FIDI Training Programmes as well as other specialist development programmes for its staff as Bob and Andrew work towards a successful succession to the next generation over the next few years.