There’s no doubt about it…moving can be one of the most stressful activities that anyone can put themselves through, and ensuring the safe transportation of the precious items you’ve spent a lifetime collecting – pictures, furniture, clothing, artwork, and even household knick-knacks – is always a nerve-wracking experience.
So, when moving day finally comes, you’ll want to place your goods in the care of Tampa, Florida-based Red Rover, a “new breed” of “fetchable” moving and storage company that empowers the consumer by offering them the unique opportunity to get as hands-on – or hands-off – with their move as they want to be.
Road Rover first opened their doors for business three years ago, and currently has operations in 15 markets throughout the United States, including locations locally in Brooklyn, Syosset, and Central Islip.
Red Rover CEO Pete Warhurst was also the founder and CEO of PODS. He was born and raised in Huntington, New York, and now resides in Orlando.
“Red Rover is sort of the next step in portable storage,” Warhurst said. “This is a similar concept to PODS, but there are several things that we do better by giving the customer more options. We have two primary services. The first is Red Rover delivering a container to a customer’s location – for this we utilize our “Retriever” truck. The container is placed at ground level and the customer can take their time loading. Then they can use the container for temporary storage at their location or they can store it at our climate-controlled Storage Center or have it shipped to their new location. This process is great for people that want the convenience of delivery andprefer some extra time to load. Besides moving, a popular use of this system is temporary storage while at the customer’s location while they are doing a renovation.”
The second is allowing the customer to come and pick up our “Ramp” truck that is preloaded with a container. This empowers the consumer to come get the truck and container whenever they want. What we do is we let the client have the truck absolutely free for 14 hours, they can load it up and bring it back, and we save them all of the delivery and handling fees.”
“So it’s a win-win proposition, we cut down on our logistics costs and the consumer saves anywhere between $200 and $500.”
For their ramp truck, the customer picks up their truck and storage container at one of Red Rover’s gated facilities. The customer is given a special code that unlocks the gate and gives them access to their truck, which Warhurst noted possesses cutting-edge technology to ensure the customer’s ride is a smooth and safe one.
“The Ramp trucks are easy for consumers to drive…very, very high tech. They have lane departure, they have emergency braking, backup cameras, everything,” he said. “And the ramp is patented and is actually automated to traverse the entire truck bed.”
The advantage of this system, Warhurst said, is that it allows the client to lower the ramp with a mere push of a button, which can be done either through the rear or the side entrances of the container, making it far easier to load and unload the storage container as opposed to the single rear-entrance models that other companies provide.
“A lot of people really appreciate this in urban areas such as Manhattan, Queens, or Brooklyn, where it’s difficult to find places to put a container on the ground,” he said. “You can have an 8-foot container on our truck, pull up to the sidewalk, and rotate the ramp around to one of the side doors and side-load that container very conveniently.”
But for those who prefer to take a hands-off approach when it comes to moving and storage, Warhurst said that Red Rover can handle everything while the customer sits back and watches.
“We actually offer more services than any company out there. We enable the consumer the ability to do the job 100 percent themselves, but if they want to have everything done for them, we can make that happen too. Or, we can do anything in between…if you want to do most of it, but you want a crew to do the heavy stuff, we’ll get you professionals to do that part of it. There isn’t anybody else that can do that.”
Red Rover currently operates in 15 markets in the United States, including Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas, Denver, Chicago, New York, Boston, and more. And reaction to the new company has been so positive that plans to continue their expansion are currently well underway, Warhurst said.
“There are still hundreds of additional markets out there, and we have just started a franchise program that I am very excited about. For the company to reach its full potential, we need to have a Red Rover location in both the origination market for someone moving and the destination market. And our franchisees will get the full benefit of the network we are building,” he said. “We fully intend to have a national footprint in thevery near future.”
And for a company offering such unique, forward-thinking concepts, Red Rover’s services are surprisingly affordable, Warhurst said.
“Our goal is to utilize technology to provide the customer a great experience and, at the same time, reduce our costs. We pass those savings on to the consumer so what they pay is nominal compared to the competition,” he said. “We intentionally try to price below any long-distance mover, and any local storage operation. As I said, it’s all about empowering the consumer.”
To find out more about Red Rover, please call 833-733-7683, email [email protected], or visit https://redrovers.com.
