MakeSpace is the latest startup to attempt to merge the ease and timeliness of modern technology with the self storage industry. These startups have been popping up seemingly overnight. A few weeks ago, we profiled Vaultd, a peer-to-peer self storage system aimed at college students. With Vaultd, customers are able to use the web to schedule pick up and delivery of storage bins. MakeSpace is offering a similar service.
Using MakeSpace’s website, you can order boxes and bins, and schedule a pickup to have these items take to a MakeSpace facility. Starting at $25 a month with a three-month minimum, MakeSpace’s service is providing a new twist on traditional self storage options. Included in that price are 4 storage bins with additional bins offered at $6.25.MakeSpaces provides free boxes, pickup and delivery to its facilities. If you want your item shipped back to you, that will cost $20 and $1 is removed from that price for every month you are a customer.
Perhaps one of MakeSpace’s niftiest features is the visual catalogs it provides of items that are stored. Once your items arrive at the facility, a virtual inventory is created and you can order your items back at any time with just one click. There is currently no mobile app but the company has a mobile-friendly website that customers can use on the go.
Control freaks may have a slight problem with the MakeSpace service since there is no public access to the warehouse where items are stored. If you ever feel the need to check on your collection of expensive antique action figures, you will have to make due with the pictures of your storage bin that MakeSpace provides. While you can’t visit to personally check on the items you have in storage, MakeSpace assures that its facility is 100% secure. It shares the area with big retailers such as Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s, Marc Jacobs, and Ralph Lauren and is under 24-hour surveillance. Additionally, each MakeSpace box comes with $250 of protection. Howvever, MakeSpace hasn’t made it clear whether or not this protection plan is insurance or if customers are required to purchase additional self storage insurance.
MakeSpace is currently available in nearly every U.S. state and territory except Hawaii, Alaska and Puerto Rico but has announced that there are plans to expand to those markets very soon. Pickups can be scheduled from Tuesday through Sunday from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. the company expects to provide pickup and delivery 7 days a week within in the next few months.
MakeSpace has seen quite a bit of success in the New York City area, where people in that location are often so pressed for time, it makes sense that they would want one less thing to worry about when it comes to self storage. The jury’s still out on whether or not everyone one else will adapt to using storage in this format. Would you give MakeSpace a try? Let us know in the comments below!
