All Boxed In: Knoxville Man Rents Reusable Packing Totes

Notes from Chris

Episode 964

We all have to do it at least once in our lives, and no matter what advances technology brings, moving can still be stressful and expensive. For anyone who has ever spent hours shoving all of their earthly possessions into a U-Haul, you know the struggle is real!

For the most part, we take Moving Day challenges in stride and consider them a necessary evil. But as Frank Ramey of Knoxville, Tennessee listened to the lamentations of his sister and brother-in-law regarding their recent hellish move, an idea began to take shape… in the form of a box.

Because that was one of their biggest complaints: cardboard boxes. No move was complete without an abundance of flimsy and expensive cardboard boxes and rolls of sticky packing tape. To them, the whole process just felt so wasteful—what do you do with those boxes once you’re done? You can store them for later, but you never know if they’ll hold up over time.

Like most of us, Frank never really gave the moving business a thought unless he needed to move. He happily ran an online marketing company, but he knew that there had to be a stress-free and eco-friendly solution to these cardboard box woes.

In his mind, the solution would be made of something sturdy and reusable like plastic. Something that movers could rent on an as-needed basis so that storage wasn’t an issue.

Before running with what he thought was a great idea, Frank did some research. As he put it, “Your idea might be a good one, but you have to ask yourself if you’re in the right area for it.” Since this was something that he was planning on starting out locally, Frank wanted to learn how many people move into the Knoxville area each year and how many of those moves were local. Only when the numbers looked good, he knew it was time to unbox his idea for real!

These were the beginnings of Rent Plastic Moving Boxes, or RPM Boxes for short. Frank planned on delivering sturdy, waterproof, and reusable plastic totes for people to pack their belongings in. When the client’s move is complete, Frank would pick up the boxes, sanitize them, and then get them ready for the next customer. Ideally, he wanted each tote to be sturdy enough to use more than 400 times each and capable of being responsibly recycled once they had served their purpose.

In the beginning, Frank was spending 10 to 15 hours per week on his hustle. He built the website, spent time networking, delivering totes, picking them up, and sanitizing. Currently, the business requires just 2 to 5 hours per week—most of which is spent cleaning the boxes. Frank’s home has a large detached workshop where the totes are cleaned and stored, but he has long term plans to rent a small warehouse with a storefront that would allow customers to pick up and return the totes themselves for a discount.

Frank began this hustle in June 2018. In that time, the business has averaged $600 a month in income. Most of his small startup cost went to purchasing the totes which cost about $15 each. He already had the truck he uses to deliver and pick up, a holdover from his lawn mowing side hustle which really helped reduce his start-up costs.

As word of mouth spreads about RPM Boxes, Frank is trying to find a balance between keeping inventory lean while keeping up with customer demand. For the future, Frank’s looking to expand outside of the Knoxville area, and he’s even toying with the idea of turning RPM Boxes into a micro-storage business as a way to produce passive income.

Clearly, there’s more than one business idea still to be unboxed!

 

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MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

• Rent Plastic Moving Boxes: Unpack more about this side hustle over on Frank's website!

 

SEE ALSO:

• Lyft Driver Bags Luggage Storage Hustle For Tourists: This Lyft driver hated seeing her customers cart their luggage all over Nashville. It looked exhausting… and like a great opportunity to cash in on the tourism market
• Music Graduate Makes Spare Change Filling Spare Rooms: After graduating and moving to London, this self taught coder builds a website to help housemates find each other. Fifteen years later, it earns millions of dollars in profit and has hundreds of thousands of members
• Ohio State Students Make Big Moves Storing Items: The annual student moving exodus provides side hustle inspiration for two university roommates

Inspiration is good; inspiration combined with action is better. Now get back to work!

Yours in the revolution,