BungoBox dealership aims to make the moving process easier

When Jon Taylor’s friend, Jami Fineberg, was preparing to move her belongings to a different location in the Syracuse area in January 2013, she sought some boxes.

 

“Cardboard boxes are out of date, and we just can’t find them anymore,” Taylor says, speaking in an interview conducted on Dec. 19. 

 

Fineberg has friends and family in northern New Jersey who told her and Taylor about a business that rents plastic moving bins to customers who are making moves. 

 

Taylor checked to see if BungoBox had any nearby locations in New York state and couldn’t find any.

 

After a year of researching the possibility, Taylor, Fineberg, and a third business partner, Carolyn Mack, in October launched a regional dealership for BungoBox, called CNY Moving Boxes, LLC.

 

Casselberry, Fla.–based BungoBox is a plastic moving-box rental company that offers dealership agreements and currently has about 20 dealers on the East Coast. 

 

The company has a slogan that reads, “Move. Unpack. Now, Give ‘Em Back,” according to its website.

 

Taylor, who grew up in Baldwinsville, has known Carolyn Mack and her family for years. Fineberg is also a long-time friend of Carolyn Mack.

 

Taylor has also done part-time work at Mack’s other business, APC Services in Waterloo, a firm that handles motor-home detailing for big industry shows. 

 

“I travel across the country getting them show-ready for the manufacturers,” Mack says. 

 

Taylor has also joined Mack on her travels to handle detailing jobs, he says. 

 

Mack has operated APC Services, which she has since renamed CMack Enterprises, Inc., for 17 years, she says. 

 

Taylor and Mack saw an opportunity in BungoBox and decided to “bring the BungoBox brand to upstate New York,” in a joint venture, Taylor explains.

 

Mack handles the paperwork for BungoBox from her home office in Waterloo, she notes.

 

Besides her partnership in the regional BungoBox dealership, Fineberg also serves as an implementation manager for transcription services for Alpharetta, Ga.–based Saince, Inc. 

 

Fineberg, who lives in Minoa, has worked in the medical-transcription industry for 27 years, she said in an email message. 

 

Taylor graduated from C.W. Baker High School in Baldwinsville in 2003 and later earned a bachelor’s degree in finance from the State University of New York at Oswego in 2007.

 

Since then, Taylor held jobs at AXA Advisors and HSBC Bank before he started pursuing the BungoBox dealership in early 2013. 

 

All three business partners share equal ownership of their dealership, according to Taylor.

 

“In a dealership model, we took BungoBox as a partner to use their proprietary information and property, such as the website and their name,” Taylor says. 

 

That leaves Taylor, Mack, and Fineberg the capabilities of operating the dealership as they “see fit,” he adds. 

 

“We have a little more say as to what we can do, as opposed to being managed by them,” Mack says.

 

The three business partners are currently the dealership’s only employees, according to Taylor and Mack. 

 

The local dealership pays BungoBox a monthly royalty fee, Mack says. Taylor declined to disclose the amount of that fee.

 

The total initial investment, including working capital and all fees to start an operation, is between $30,000 and $150,000, depending on certain variables such as location, size of operation, and other factors, according to the BungoBox website. 

 

Having launched in October, Taylor declined to disclose a revenue projection for the dealership in 2014.

 

BungoBox is “less expensive and we’re 100 percent sustainable,” Taylor says, noting the products are between 30 percent and 50 percent cheaper than regular boxes. 

 

Taylor also contends the boxes make a move “easier,” since the boxes have wheels and the renter can also stack the boxes on top of one another.

 

Mack has a “very large” storage building on her property in Waterloo. The firm also stores boxes in a moving trailer it uses for delivering the boxes, she adds.

 

Marketing currently takes up about 50 percent of the partners’ time as they work to build the business. 

 

“Social media has become pretty big lately, also time consuming,” Taylor says.

 

As of Dec. 19, BungoBox had worked on three moving projects, including two residential moves and one commercial move Mack says.

 

Tom Cannon and his cousin, Bob Cannon, founded BungoBox, according to the firm’s website. Tom Cannon serves as the CEO and Bob Cannon is the company president. The corporate team also includes Mike Navarra, who serves as the operations manager, the website says.        

 

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com