A Great Unique Franchised Service based on the delivery and pickup of reasonably priced returnable boxes for hire, backed by a pleasant consumer friendly environment, with consistent quality service.

As someone who had owned a removal company for 35 years, Barry Harris knows that most people receive their packing boxes when they have signed a contract with their removalist.

He also knows that the majority would prefer to start packing earlier than that. Hiring out boxes seemed an obvious solution but, when he began researching this idea back in 1998, he found that no-one was doing it anywhere else in the world.

I'd imagined I'd do the typical thing of finding a successful model and improving on it," he says. "When I couldn't find anything like it I thought there must be something wrong with the idea.” In fact, Barry had come up with an eminently workable new concept. He now operates the first and only box hire franchise in the world.

Barry went to great lengths to prove the strength of his concept before starting to franchise – he ran a pilot operation for over six years, doing every delivery and pickup himself, meeting customers and finding out how they felt about the service.

“Most people move home within five years and I wanted to know how many would use our service again,” he says.

“I found that over 50% of our work came from people who had used us before or through word of mouth. That means half of the work is already there, and that’s pretty good. It certainly produced enough work for the pilot operation with very little advertising.”

His experiences on the road enabled Barry to design a model that’s very franchisee-friendly and one that produces a generous income. The typical Hire A Box franchisee enjoys the flexibility of having a home-based business, is happy to be out on the road, enjoys personal contact with customers and understands the importance of providing a good, reliable service.

"Franchisees don't have to worry about taking phone enquiries or bookings as everything's done through the central hub," he says. "We just send them a list of jobs for their area at the end of each day. We also supply boxes and ancillary products and, when the boxes have reached the end of their hiring life, we replace them with brand new ones.”

The cost of a Hire A Box franchise is quite affordable at $65,000 +GST, plus van and sign writing. A franchisee doing 10 deliveries per day will earn $2,500 per week over five days with only the expenses of running their van. The franchisee is guaranteed an income of $1,100 per week for the first 13 weeks while his/her area is being established with advertising and marketing.

Hire A Box pays for all the boxes, tape, tape dispensers, wrapping paper, bubble wrap etc., along with all the major advertising and marketing. There are no ongoing franchise fees or advertising levy. Barry is even committed to keeping company-owned buffer areas so that he can fairly distribute jobs from these areas to the franchisees.

“We know the jobs that are coming in and we want each franchisee to have the same opportunity to make a decent income,” he says.

Hire A Box charges around half the cost of buying boxes or getting them from a removalist, and that includes delivery and pickup after use.

“More and more removalists are now using us for their customers because it’s a lot more convenient for them too,” says Barry. “They prefer to focus on their prime business of moving people.”

For further information please contact Barry Harris on 0425 343 761.

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