We’ve added a new Require feature to Buy Boxes and Wanted sections search that allows users to show only listings that include boxes of a specific type.

For example, if you are looking for moving boxes, but are only interested in buying if you can get Wardrobes at the same time you can now select a Wardrobe box type from the Require drop-down and search. Only sellers who have Wardrobes as one of the boxes in their listing will be shown in search results.

This feature is especially useful when searching for gaylord boxes, specific size shipping boxes, and other box types that tend to be available at a small percentage of the sellers and are hence difficult to search for by browsing.

A few things to note:

• An entire listing is shown, as long as it includes the box type you require
• You cannot yet search for a specific box size, but you can use box types to restrict by length.
• You may want to try a few searches since some boxes can be listed under multiple possible types (e.g. Gaylord Box, Box – 38-48″).
• To search beyond 100 miles please contact us.
• Many listings in the Wanted section do not include a box type so you may end up hiding listings you’d like to see.

Phone Notification of Order Confirmation

Buyers already receive an email (and sms if they provide a mobile number) when their order is confirmed and can track order status online. Now buyers without sms will receive a phone call when their order is confirmed if the confirmation occurs close to appointment time. This makes sure that if email is delayed, or if the buyer doesn’t check it, they will still be aware of their updated order status.

Buyer Appointment Reminders

Buyers now also receive another sms or phone call shortly before their appointment to serve as a reminder. To keep messaging to a minimum this reminder is only sent if order confirmation didn’t occur too recently.

Improved Scheduling

Our core focus is saving time and minimizing frustration for customers. We put a lot of thought in to make sure not only that buyers and sellers get the communication they need, but that they don’t get more communication than is required and that it occurs at times that make sense.

Our calls to sellers always took calling hours into account. Now text messages do as well. And of course new calls to buyers. If an event occurs at unreasonable hours, we’ll delay the notification until hours are more reasonable so you don’t get a call or a text message at 3am. But if time to appointment is short and the situation demands it, we’ll process the call or sms later or earlier in the day. We take into account a lot of information to make the best guess of a contact time that will minimize frustration while retaining usefulness.

We’ve added support for two new box attributes: Test/Strength and Maximum Weight Capacity. Seller listings can now include these details and Wanted Listings can now request that boxes match these attributes.

Test is a standard measure of box strength. It also hints at how heavy the box is. It is measured using either Bursting Test (# Test) or Edge Crush Test (ECT).

Maximum Weight Capacity indicates the maximum weight a box is designed to hold in pounds. This value is most useful for buyers of larger boxes and bulk cargo boxes. To minimize clutter we don’t currently show this attributes for other box types.

Both attributes can be found on the round Box Certification Seal present on most boxes.

We’ve cleaned up, expanded, clarified, and organized our Frequently Asked Questions for buyers and sellers to better address common questions we receive. Hopefully these changes make FAQs easier and more useful.

In the process we’ve started to codify how we deal with buyer order cancellations and added a new section to help sellers with taxes.

Cancellations

Our cancellation policy hasn’t changed, we are simply trying to add structure to some of the decisions that were already being made. Our hope is to ultimately add enough structure to allow us to properly handle most of the cancellations through the website, both automatically and by buyer request. Currently most cancellations are handled manually.

We require buyers to commit to their purchase, but do not want to punish them for sellers who are slow to respond. We also do not want to disadvantage buyers who pick appointments further in the future. With variable seller hours and lead times, a straight time cut-off to respond isn’t reasonable. This update is the first step in codifying how long a buyer needs to wait before they can cancel with no penalties.

Taxes

Tax rules haven’t changed either (since we don’t control them.) The new tax section and Sales Report hopefully provide sellers with enough information to help them get started.

Our recently released Seller Wanted Listings made it easy to buy boxes wholesale on BoxCycle. They also made it possible to sell through BoxCycle without creating a listing and holding inventory, something that was frequently requested by users.

Today, we are expanding access to Seller Wanted Listings to buyers who aren’t also selling boxes. Our focus is on buyers who are looking for larger quantities and/or have a regular need for boxes, but all types of buyers are supported.

Buyers who create (or already have) a regular Wanted Listing / Notification Request, with specific box information, will see an invitation on their listing page to convert to a Seller Wanted Listing. A seller account is still required to have a Seller Wanted Listing, but the conversion process automatically copies buyer details from the Notification Request to make this step easier. After the conversion, the buyer can optionally update buy prices or setup their pickup rules.

Since custom buy prices and buyer-only listings accommodate transactions that weren’t originally possible, buyer commission is now calculated from either quantity or value instead of just quantity: see the latest buyer fee details.

We are excited about enabling and expanding this new way to reuse cardboard boxes.

Last week we released a feature we’ve been working on for a long time: Seller Wanted Listings.

Custom Prices

We’ve now removed one of the limitations of the first release – lack of ability to set custom buy prices. With today’s update, buyers can specify prices they are willing to pay for boxes they are requesting. Automatic pricing is still available; simply leave the price blank and we’ll set the buy price to 10% of the suggested retail price.

Notification of Matching Retail Listings

If you have a Seller Wanted Listing, it’s now easy to be notified when new boxes matching your wanted listing are created on the retail side of BoxCycle: just check the Notify Me checkbox on your Seller Wanted Listing. Retail listings are regular listing created by sellers through the Sell Boxes section of BoxCycle.

This is perfect if there are situation when you’d want to buy boxes you are requesting at retail prices. This feature doesn’t create any commitments. You’ll get an email when a new seller lists something that matches what you are requesting. You can then either purchase the newly listed boxes or ignore the notification.

BoxCycle got a significant new piece of functionality today: Seller Wanted Listings. Existing sellers can now request specific boxes they want to buy and anyone can sell matching boxes to them. Seller Wanted Listing Transactions use essentially the same checkout system, order management system, and processing rules as normal Retail Orders with buyer and seller roles reversed.

You can find details on the BoxCycle Buying and Selling Used Boxes with Wanted Listings Help Page.

Selling

Most people who contact us about selling boxes just want to drop them off somewhere or, if possible, get them picked up. They are generally more concerned with convenience than with profit. Seller Wanted Listings fill their need. Sellers can see matching buyers in their area, schedule an appointment, and submit their request online. No account is required.

Buying

Seller Wanted Listings enable Wholesale Purchases through BoxCycle. While prices on BoxCycle are generally very competitive for retail purchases, they are usually too high to enable buying for resale through the site. Seller Wanted Listings enable resale buying. They also allow sellers to get boxes they need for themselves very cheaply. It isn’t unusual for businesses to constantly want to get rid of certain box sizes while always needing other sizes.

Limitations

These may be removed in future revisions based on feedback, but for this first release:

• Buyers cannot set a minimum order. However, small orders aren’t likely since sellers pay a fee to place an order.
• Prices are set at approximately 10% of list price and cannot be adjusted.
• Retail Delivery and Wanted Pickup cannot be separated. If you offer Delivery for your Retail Listing, you will also be offering Pickup for your Wanted Listing under the same terms.
• Unflattened boxes must be accepted, though buyers can pay up to 50% less for them.
• Expiration Date, Auto-Confirm, and Lead-Time settings are shared between Retail and Wanted listings.

Process and Fees

Sellers pay a $10 commission on successful sales with their payment details collected during order placement. Although it’s unusual to give payment details when selling, this is essential for us to be able to get a high level of commitment from sellers and enforce fees for unreliable behavior, much like we do with Retail Orders. This fee also has the effect of encouraging larger transactions.

Ordering process and management is very similar to Retail Orders with buyer and seller roles reversed. Buyers will hopefully only see a minimally higher time involvement for these orders. The main differences are that buyers pay sellers directly at meeting in cash and both parties have more freedom to resolve issues at meeting without our involvement.

Buyers do not not pay fees for Wanted Orders of 200 boxes or less unless they charge for Pickup. In that case we’ll collect Pickup charges from the seller at order time (to make sure the buyer gets paid for pickup if the seller flakes) and charge a 5% commission on the collected amount.

If the order is over 200 boxes, BoxCycle charges the buyer a $5 commission for each block of 100 boxes after the first 200 with a $30 maximum. This fee is collected during order confirmation.

Conclusion

Although there is some overlap, Seller Wanted Listings and our Retail Seller Listings are focused on different kinds of transactions. Seller Wanted Listings are optimized around connecting buyers who continuously need boxes for resale or use with, often one-time, retail sellers. In contrast, our Retail Seller Listings are optimized around connecting sellers with a continuous supply of boxes with, often one-time, retail buyers.

We look forward to your feedback to help us improve this feature over the coming months.

BoxCycle sellers can now list their used (or new) packing supplies as well as their boxes. Buyers frequently want to pickup packing supplies with their purchase and many sellers are happy to get rid of their packing material from moving or shipping.

You can find a new category called Packing Supplies in the list of box types. At this time we support the following types of supplies:

• Packing Paper (Sheets and Rolls)
• Cushion Foam (Sheets and Rolls)
• Bubble Wrap (Rolls of 3 bubble sizes)
• Packing Peanuts (Biodegradable and Regular)

Supplies must be listed in specific units. For example, Sheets are listed in pounds (lb), Rolls in feet (ft), Peanuts in cubic feet (cu ft), etc. So you can’t say ‘I have 3 bags packing paper for sale’ (what size are the bags? how tightly are they packed? etc.) You need to weigh the paper and list by weight.

By default Quantity indicates how many units you have. For example, listing 200 units of Packing Paper – Sheets means you have 200lb and buyers can purchase any number of pounds. Alternately, you can easily offer supplies as packs by editing the supply listing. For example, you could edit the above 200 unit listing to mean 20 units of 10lb each. You still have 200lb listed, but buyers now have to purchase in increments of 10lb.

New supplies are often sold in packs and it’s often easier to sell used supplies in predetermined standard quantities. Packs also help with lowering commission costs since our per unit commission caps are based on Quantity. Assuming list price of $0.50/lb in the example above, the seller would pay $50 in commissions when all 200lb sold. If the same 200lb were purchased as 20 packs of 10lb they would pay $23, and if the purchase was for 1 pack of 200lb, the commission would be $6. We expect that supplies will be sold in packs much of the time, though some sellers will prefer to offer maximum flexibility to buyers.

We are happy to get this frequently requested feature out the door and look forward to improving it and adding support for other supplies in future releases.

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.

Our Standard Listing process was designed to help people unfamiliar with the box business to quickly and correctly post their inventory. Additional options, like box details and custom pricing become editable after the listing is created. However, there is a large number of professionals in the box business – manufacturers, resellers, recyclers, etc. – who know exactly what they are listing and how much they want to get for it, and for whom editing boxes one-by-one after listing is time consuming and annoying. Listing by Dimensions and Express List are two features we added previously to help these professional sellers get on BoxCycle more efficiently.

The recently added Advanced List feature allows experienced sellers to specify box options when they first create their listing. For example, 500 18x16x16, Double-Wall, Plain, Kraft boxes in Inspected Condition with a Profit requirement of $1.00/box. It works similarly to quote forms that should be familiar to volume box sellers. Advanced List doesn’t add any new options; it just makes advanced options available earlier in the listing process and removes the editing step.