Wow, it looks like Bloomberg Businessweek picked up the Austin American Statesman article which is great news for two reasons: 1. It’s Bronko Box in Bloomberg! 2. Now we have the opportunity to share the Statesman article in it’s entirety with YOU fine folks!
Startup’s rent-to-move plastic boxes target cardboard competition
Bo and Brooke Cox of Buda are trying to eliminate the cardboard box from the moving experience.
If the husband-and-wife team had their way, there would be no more dumpster-diving for free boxes or trips to the store to buy cardboard boxes.
Instead, the couple’s company, Bronko Box, rents sturdy, stack-able plastic boxes that come assembled with locking lids. They will deliver the boxes, then pick them up after the move.
“We can offer lower prices cause they are reusable,” said Bo Cox, who estimated that the plastic versions can be reused 400 times before they are recycled.
“You spend your hard-earned money on cardboard boxes and they end up in the landfill,” Brooke Cox said. “This is so much easier on the environment.”
The company’s large box — 27 inches by 17.75 inches by 12.5 inches –rents for $1.50 a week and goes up to $3 for three weeks. The next size up goes for $2 for one week and up to $4 for three weeks.
Not sure how many boxes are needed?
Bronko Box offers packages from studio apartments ($30 for the first week) up to four-bedroom houses ($270 for three weeks).
Dollies aren’t necessary. Five plastic boxes can be stacked on wheels designed to move them.
The couple started Bronko Box in March and now provide delivery and pick up from Austin to San Marcos.
About one in four Americans change residencies each year, according to recent surveys, and Central Texas’ young and mobile demographics underlies Bronko Box’s business plan.
“We’ve moved a lot,” Brooke Cox said. “As good as you get at it, it’s not fun. But this helps.”
There is even help for procrastinators who leave cardboard boxes unpacked for years.
Bronko Box rents the boxes at a declining rate each week, but Bo Cox said most people rent no longer than three weeks.
“It is an incentive,” Bo Cox said. “It makes people unpack sooner.”
Read the FULL article HERE.
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