How to Start a Used Moving Box Business With No Money - How I Did It

In 2010, 35.1 million people in the United States changed their residence by moving. That’s 11.6 percent of the population in just that one year. It’s an amazing statistic. If you have ever moved, you also know that it’s a very expensive statistic for the people involved. The costs to move can range from the low hundreds, to thousands of dollars.

There are many different types of businesses that cater to people who are moving. All of them involve solving the many problems that can come with transporting items over long distances. In many ways it’s a recession proof industry. People are always going to move.　

The downside for many of the businesses in the moving industry is that their services are often a commodity. Because the barriers to entry are so low for the business, it’s one that tends to have heavy competition. It’s in the niches of the business where the real money is made. For example, there might be a thousand companies competing for the actual moving job, but very few that are competing to sell specially designed moving dollies.

It’s often the case that you can help solve a problem in a general market with a highly specific solution. If I am a seller of specialized moving dollies I am unlikely to face competition from the companies that actually offer the moving services. On the surface the businesses seem related. It’s only when you look closer that you see how far away they are.

The same concept applies to other items that are frequently used and needed for moving. Things like tape and labels, for example. If you can design a way to make a mass market need more efficient for the companies involved in servicing that need, you can make a lot of money.

This concept even applies to the most obvious items that people use to move. Things like the subject of this article, the moving box. You would think after hundreds of millions of moves, that moving companies would have figured out how to sell moving boxes. Don’t get me wrong here. They actually do sell moving boxes at moving companies. I mean how come they haven’t figured out how to sell a lot of moving boxes?

The answer to that question is obvious to anyone who has looked at the prices of them. The price moving companies charge for moving boxes is way too high. Take a look at these screen shots from companies involved in the moving business:

Examples of New Moving Box Prices　　

When I see those pictures I see an opportunity. It’s an opportunity because you can easily get used boxes for nothing. You can then turn around and sell them for a fraction of what brand new boxes would sell for.

The reason I know this, is because about a year ago I actually did it. I got the yellow pages out and I called businesses in my area. I asked them a few very simple questions.

List of Questions to Ask

1. Do you generate a lot of cardboard boxes?

2. Are they decent sized?

3. Can I occasionally take some? Or, Can you put some aside for me?

4. Are they usually clean?

My advice would be to avoid supermarkets entirely when gathering boxes. It’s not that they don’t have boxes; it’s that they are the only place that people usually try to call to get boxes. So they are used to the requests and you’re unlikely to get very many of them. Also,the quality of their boxes tends not to be as consistent as you might think it would be.

What people don’t understand is that practically every business uses cardboard boxes. If you pick the right types of places you can get some amazing cardboard. Here are some good places.

List of Places to Get Cardboard

1. Industrial companies

2. Clothing stores

3. Package stores

4. Restaurants

5. Drugstores/CVS (thanks CVS! For the cardboard)

Just don’t judge a place by what it does. There are places that generate massive amounts of cardboard that most people would never even consider calling. When you get the phone book out, do it with the intention of calling a few places. You also want to make sure that you actually go to get the cardboard. You’re going to get a lot of yeses. When you get one be prepared to act.

How Many Boxes Do I Need?

A good goal to start would be to gather 30 decent used cardboard boxes of various sizes.

How Do I Sell Them and For How Much?

What I did was I gathered about 30 boxes from a local restaurant on my first box selling attempt. I then put an ad on Craigslist with the following title: Moving Boxes 30 Available $.50 Cents. (Town). You don't need to add the word apiece in the title. Put that part of it in the actual ad. They'll subconsciously know that they can't get 30 boxes for only $.50 cents, so there is no need to draw too much attention to it.

Make sure you put your phone number in the ad. You want to keep the ad strictly business. A few lines. You tell them you have 30 boxes immediately available at whatever price you choose to sell them at per box. Personally, I got a lot of calls at $.50 cents apiece.

My first batch of boxes sold within an hour. I had three phone calls within 20 minutes of placing the ad, and money in my hand within an hour. I then called back the other two people and told them I would get them boxes also. I then got them boxes and sold another 50 the next day.

I continued my experiment for one week. I sold 200 boxes in total and made 100 dollars. That was with one ad on Craigslist and no other effort. If you’re willing to call people who have houses for sale, or decide to advertise in multiple areas, you can make a lot more money than I did. I’m sure of it.

Ideas for Expansion

1. Call a company that collects cardboard from businesses and buy their cardboard boxes for 300 dollars per ton.

2. Call real estate agents and sell the boxes to them to give away to prospective clients

3. Sell the boxes on EBay