Offering College Students a New Storage Option – Rollit Storage
By Christina Steffy | Photos courtesy of Rollit Storage
It’s that time of year again. Time to move back to the dorms. Yes, before you know it, a day you take off work will be anything but relaxing. Instead, it will be filled with traffic jams, parking along the sidewalks of a crowded campus, and trying to maneuver suitcases into packed elevators. It’s a day that will end in exhaustion. And you can repeat it again when your son or daughter moves out of the college dorms.
But Rollit Storage is making this easier. Founded last year by Terry McKim, Rollit Storage provides you with a lightweight, plastic storage unit on wheels. It’s specifically designed to maneuver easily through those small dormitory hallways, doorways and elevators while being able to hold 1,100 pounds of materials.
With Rollit, you can have your storage unit delivered to you curbside, outside your dorm room. Then you can pack what you don’t need to take home over summer and winter breaks, and your Rollit will be safely stored in a secure warehouse. Then you can have it delivered to your dorm at the beginning of the next semester.
Students provide their own locks for added safety. However, if they don’t have a lock, Rollit will provide a security tag.
The idea for Rollit Storage crystallized for McKim last year. Between hearing parents talk about moving sons and daughters into college, seeing new storage pods that can be delivered, and knowing someone who had available storage space, McKim thought, “Wouldn’t it be great to have storage that’s focused on students?” Voila! Rollit Storage was born.
“The biggest hurdle was finding a moveable, accessible unit,” says McKim.
After figuring out the logistics, he surveyed some students at Millersville University, his alma mater, to see if they would want something like Rollit. McKim didn’t expect such a positive reaction.
“Seventy-five percent of the students surveyed loved the idea that summer storage can come to them,” he says.
McKim wants to focus on local, Berks County colleges and universities; however he said Rollit will go to any school within a reasonable distance.
If students must access their Rollit over the break, they can arrange an appointment to do so. Also, if the student lives outside of the region and must access their Rollit or decides not to return to a local school, the units can be shipped via UPS for an additional charge.
Rollit is already a hit with some regional schools and local colleges. According to McKim, Kutztown University (KU) is interested in helping provide this service to its international students, for whom making arrangements to move their things in and out of the country is costly and time consuming. KU would also like to offer this service to its students studying abroad. Although McKim didn’t have that in mind originally, he says it’s a service he does plan to provide.
McKim also wants to provide jobs and internships to local college students. “We have so many great local colleges and universities, why not utilize some of their students?” he says. He would like to hire students to work part-time, and also hire marketing and advertising student interns to help spread the word about Rollit Storage.
McKim says that, despite sparse advertising, word of Rollit spread so fast this year because of social media like Facebook, campus visits he made and word of mouth. College alumni and seniors were telling underclassmen they wish they had something like this when they were in school, and people were following Rollit on Facebook and Twitter.
The overwhelmingly positive response has lead to Rollit selling out of units for summer 2010. Rather than expanding immediately to meet the demands this year, McKim decided to keep the company small at first and grow gradually.
“I didn’t want the company to get too big too fast,” he says. “I still wanted to be able to focus on customer service. We will take Rollit storage to a new level in summer 2011.”
McKim adds, “There are other storage options out there, but this is completely unique.”
Rollit Storage
610.400.3151
