The last few months have been pretty exciting for BoxCycle. We are seeing more visits, more listings, and more orders and we are refining the process to help us keep up and provide the best possible experience for buyers and sellers.

Unfortunately, the last few months have also been maddening. Just as traffic improved, website performance became slow and unreliable. We tried a number of things to improve speed, but, ultimately, the problem came down to deteriorating performance of our web host, HostingRails. HostingRails has worked quite well when we setup BoxCycle, but, since being taken over by JumpLine in 2010, seems to have lost their Rails expertise and their performance focus. As time passed, the site performed poorer and poorer and JumpLine’s response gave little hope that it would get better.

Switching providers is always scary, but in mid-May we pulled the plug and moved over to WebFaction which is known for its modern setup, less loaded servers, and a focus on performance. The transition was nerve-racking, but went through without a hitch.

We also implemented a number of improvements, both before and after the transition, to help with performance:

• Switched from Apache/Mongrel to Nginx/Passenger
• Implemented many server-side best practices such as GZip
• Added Expires headers to static assets and made sure that they are served by Nginx without touching Rails
• Implemented Rails fragment caching on some heavily used components
• Modified deployment so last modified dates are only updated on changed files
• Upgraded to the latest version of the Twilio API allowing us to setup Failover for outgoing calls to better deal with server timeouts
• Started using asset_host in Rails to split requests for static files between several domains
• Updated BoxCycle to heed more of the recommendations made by tools like YSlow and Google PageSpeed
• Upgraded Rails to 2.3.11 (made possible by switching to Passenger since Mongrel has problems above 2.3.5 and we don’t yet have a good reason to migrate to Rails 3)

There are certainly more things we can do, but fundamentally, we aren’t yet at a point where optimizing performance should be our highest priority. There is plenty of work on our plate that more directly impacts people’s ability to buy and sell used boxes.

Unfortunately, we ended up on a WebFaction server that was under quite a bit of load and despite all the work we were stuck with a less intense version of the same problem. Talk about frustrating. To their credit, WebFaction was prompt with action and communication and worked with us to identify and remove issues causing load. After a few weeks of effort, things improved, but were still not acceptable. We requested to be transferred to another server. Again, to their credit, WebFaction was very accommodating and setup our account on a server with lowest average load.

So once again, we rolled up our sleeves and transferred servers. Transferring within the same host is easier, and, since WebFaction supports multi-server setups, it is easier still. But it was still nerve-racking.

The transition is now over and the difference is spectacular. BoxCycle feels super fast. I, for one, am just relieved to have this issue over with.

We’ve expanded the BoxCycle Gifts and Apparel Store with 3 great new designs plus a number of new products including organic shirts and a full selection of drinkware.  And we still have a great selection of apparel made specifically for women and children.

Here are the new designs:

Summary: Sellers who want to enable Auto-Confirm now need to be authorized by BoxCycle.   To get authorized please call us so we can make sure your situation is appropriate for Auto-Confirm.  Some of the sellers who had Auto-Confirm enabled will now find it disabled and will need to request authorization.

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Auto-Confirm allows sellers to bypass the confirmation step of the BoxCycle Order Process.  When used properly, it benefits both buyers and sellers.

Buyers get to pickup boxes quicker, sometimes much quicker, since they get the seller’s location immediately after order.  Sellers save a bit of time on order processing and get additional business since buyers often want to pickup boxes yesterday and Auto-Confirm is the only way to achieve a high level of certainty that you’ll get boxes fast.

Of course, this means the seller must always be available during their working hours and must always have boxes on hand.  There are many sellers who meet these requirements, primarily businesses who always have staff on location and always have boxes in storage.

However, despite stern warnings when selecting the option, some sellers appear to not understand the full significance of selecting Auto-Confirm.  Although we notify sellers upon Auto-Confirm orders, buyers can show up less than an hour after order placement, possibly before the seller received a notification.  It’s clearly not appropriate for casual sellers who might not be home or might forget to update their listing.

I’ve been mulling various options for managing Auto-Confirm for a while.  We’ve already added language to our Terms of Service.  We’ve also already limited casual sellers from selecting Auto-Confirm (and other advanced options), by moving them out of the initial Preferences screen.   Most casual sellers do not Show All Preferences.

However, an issue with an Auto-Confirm order last night made me refocus on the problem.  Unfortunately, it does not seem that sellers can be trusted with properly using a dangerous option like this, warnings and all.  So, we’ve added a requirement of an authorization step.  Before authorizing the seller for Auto-Confirm we’ll make sure their situation is appropriate and/or they have sufficient order history to be trusted to properly manage Auto-Confirm orders.

Hopefully this step will be sufficient.  We’ll keep reviewing how it performs and making adjustments.

I truly believe BoxCycle can change the world. It can make a significant environmental impact. That’s why I am doing it.

Most people only come in contact with boxes when moving and don’t grasp the volume of boxes discarded each day.  Nearly every store, office, warehouse, and school receives and discards loads of boxes daily.  Many discard more in day than individuals will use in a lifetime of moving.   That is a large amount of environmental waste.  It’s also a missed opportunity to reduce costs and help the community.  Many organizations spend money getting rid of their boxes when they could actually turn a profit, help their neighbors, and help the environment.  It’s a win for everyone.

But most of them recycle, so what’s the big deal, right?  Some do recycle, but recycling only reduces impact by a little bit.  Local reuse eliminates impact.  Recycling isn’t a great option, it’s just a better option than throwing cardboard away.

I am quite excited about the release of our Help Boxes page.  The focus of this page is to make it easier for people to help BoxCycle grow.  It has suggestions on how to help, graphics you can use to link to us, social networking info, and more.  The success of BoxCycle, and the size of it’s environmental impact, is largely dependent on the size of the seller network we can build and the general public awareness we can raise.   I know there are lots of passionate people out there who’d love to help – this page is the first step in making helping easy.

Join BoxCycle

Many people think of BoxCycle primarily in the context of moving boxes, but it is also designed to help people sell and find cheap shipping boxes.  For example, you can now find a decent variety of new and used shipping boxes in Los Angeles.  And if shipping boxes you need aren’t available in your area yet you can create Boxes Wanted listings, which are designed to help large sellers find buyers looking for specific boxes.

It is usually harder to find used shipping boxes than moving boxes.  Smaller shipping boxes are easier to get rid of and aren’t worth as much so most people don’t think much about them before recycling them.  Shipping boxes are needed in larger quantities and specific dimensions are usually much more important than for moving boxes. 

For online merchants and warehouses shipping boxes are the flip side of the box problem.  These businesses get their merchandise in bulk in large boxes, but send it out in small quantities using small boxes.  They end up with lots of moving size boxes they can’t use, but find themselves constantly buying new shipping boxes when used boxes would work just as well.

There actually are plenty of sources for unneeded shipping boxes.  Box manufacturers often have misprinted, overrun, and discontinued boxes by the truckload that they literally throw into the recycling bin.  Companies often buy boxes by the thousands for a specific purpose.  If their idea doesn’t pan out they are stuck with lots of boxes they have no use for.  In both of these examples, boxes are thrown out without ever being used!

The problem is that finding such sources is difficult, especially when you need specific size boxes.  Similarly, it is nearly impossible for sellers to find buyers for their boxes.  Although people are always looking to buy and sell finding a match of size and quantity at a specific point in time is difficult and most don’t bother.

Our Boxes Wantedsection was designed to help sellers find buyers.  But we also have sellers regularly list their unneeded shipping boxes.  If you are in the mailing business checking BoxCycle before buying boxes just might save you some money without a lot of work.  You can make it even easier on yourself by getting an automated notification when sellers list specific boxes.

Plus you’ll be doing a big favor for the environment.

Sellers who receive boxes sporadically are quite common.  Ideally, we want them to store their boxes and either update their inventory manually or approximate it with an automated schedule.  But what typically happens is that boxes are stored for a short period of time and thrown out and the inventory is never updated.

It’s hard to expect sellers to store boxes and remember to update inventory if they aren’t getting regular orders, which can’t happen until we reach critical mass in their area.  But even if there is high order frequency, many sellers with sporadic supply will not bother with inventory updates and we have no way of doing such updates automatically.

I’ve been thinking about a way to accommodate such sellers for several months.  A wave of crystallization finally hit and I now have a vision of how it can work.

Buyers will be able to request availability from such sellers.  Sellers will still specify boxes and prices, but will not track actual quantities.  Buyer’s availability requests can be processed much like an order and include information such as box quantities needed, minimal contact information, and date range during which boxes are required.  If the seller is able to provide boxes within the date range, buyer is notified and can convert their request into an order by supplying appointment and payment details.  If the seller is unable to provide boxes, their listing can be automatically removed for a few days to minimize unnecessary requests.

This ‘pre-confirm’ approach allows sellers to list their inventory once and only think about boxes when someone says they want them. At that point it is natural to check what’s available and/or store boxes that come in to accommodate an outstanding request.

Of course, there are downsides to this approach.  Availability requests increase the amount of communication buyer and seller need to deal with.  Since requests are unlikely to be binding, sellers will need to field multiple requests per order.

Although I, personally, strongly prefer efficiency and built BoxCycle to minimize work, in practice, many people do not mind the extra communication.  Buyers are often comforted by confirmation prior to purchase and many sellers are quite social and enjoy contact.  And sellers still receive majority of benefits of BoxCycle such as privacy and controlled, limited communication.  Those sellers who want to minimize contact can continue to manage quantities (something that is preferable for us as well.)

This is a substantial addition to how BoxCycle functions and I see a number of other potential issues. However, I’ll let this play out and see which issues actually come out in practice.  I doubt any of them will be absolute deal-breakers.

The thing that really unified the solution for me is recognizing requests as incomplete orders. This allows for a similar checkout process and makes it easy for buyers to convert requests into orders.  It’s quite exciting, for me anyway.

Unlike most previous updates, this post is more about what may happen rather than what has happened.

We did push out a limited version of this capability this morning.  Basically, we can put sellers into pre-confirm mode and buyers will then see a Request Availability link instead of a Buy button.  The link just sends us an email.

This should be enough for us to start gathering information on practical benefits and implications of this feature.  Implementation as described will take at least a few weeks.

If you are an existing or potential seller and want to sell using the pre-confirm mode please let us know so we can enable it for your account.

Most potential box sellers simply throw their boxes away (or at best recycle them) instead of letting them be reused.  Their reasons tend to be similar: lack of knowledge of other options, belief that reuse will be too time consuming, disruptive, or expensive, and lack of interest in dealing with retail consumers.

Until BoxCycle these concerns would often be correct.  Although people tend to group us with other marketplaces, BoxCycle was designed specifically to eliminate barriers to selling boxes.  We built the system based on real issues and challenges to make reuse easy, non-disruptive, and profitable.

BoxCycle works for many potential sellers, but getting them to understand our unique benefits and requirements is a constant challenge.  To help this cause, we’ve cleaned up the Learn About Selling Boxes  and Sell Used Boxes  pages and added additional sections to detail our unique features and highlight our target sellers.

Let us know if you think there are seller concerns we have not addressed or if you find these new sections confusing.

Josh Chandler recently interviewed me about BoxCycle.  You can listen to the interview at http://www.joshchandlerblog.com/2009/06/interview-with-ilia-gimelfarb-founder-of-boxcyclecom/ .

BoxCycle was recently featured in Startup Reviews on Mashable.  I think it’s safe to assume that Adam was the first to use the term “Boxcycling” to describe buying and selling used boxes.  Google here we come!

Yeah, yeah…one review doesn’t put us into the Webster’s Dictionary, but hey, tis the season to be jolly.

Happy Holidays!

I never expected this question.  Yet, during a recent marketing test in LA enough potential sellers have asked that it has been added to our Seller FAQ.  And several asked in a way that assumed that the answer is ‘yes’.  That before selling their used boxes they would need to carefully peel off tape and labels and do other preparations.

It is always encouraging to be reminded of how conscientious people can be. 

For the record, there is no need to do box cleaning.  I am not sure that it could even be beneficial since peeling off tape and labels will typically do damage to the box.  See how we assure box quality.  Box sellers who are willing to go the extra mile can quality check their boxes and sell them as Inspected or Plain Inspected and get a bit of extra money for their effort.