Tuesday, September 23, 2008

BoxCycle.com Launches Marketplace for Cardboard Boxes

Every day, businesses and retailers are flooded with boxes containing everything from new store inventory to documents. Presented with these mountains of cardboard, most businesses simply stack them “out back” until they can be shipped to recycling services or a landfill. At the same time, many consumers find themselves paying relatively high prices for new boxes, contributing to added environmental waste in the process. BoxCycle, a San Francisco-based startup launching this week, is looking to help connect the two parties by giving businesses a simple way to sell their boxes to anyone who will take them. To begin selling, businesses first establish their hours of availability, and then input how many boxes of each size they have from a list of predetermined choices (all prices are fixed and depend on box size). Customers visiting the site use a calendar function to set exactly what date and time they’ll be picking up their boxes, and then pay using either a credit card or PayPal (there’s a $5 penalty if you miss your appointment). The site says that it is giving businesses a way to help the environment while getting paid for their efforts, but most businesses will probably find the monetary incentive to be minimal - common moving boxes only sell for around one dollar apiece (and the site keeps half of that).
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/22/boxcycle-a-marketplace-for-cardboard-boxes/

http://www.boxcycle.com/

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