Bellhops, a Tennessee-based moving company that employs college students to help others move, launched in 13 new cities, including Boston, according to a Feb. 9 press release.
Bellhops now operates in over 121 cities and 42 states, according to their website.
The company employs students or “bellhops” who can pick up individual jobs in their area. The pay for each job differs on the size, and the company claims students can make up to 15 dollars an hour per job, the release stated.
In order to successfully launch in any particular city, the release stated, Bellhops will need to first hire a student work force.
“Co-founder Cameron Doody estimates that the company will hire at least 600 students that attend colleges in those cities to meet demand for moving help,” the press release said.
Doody said the company seeks to hire college students because of their education and communication skills.
“The big issue is continuity of the work force. It’s just really hard to get good people to be movers for a living,” Doody said. “College students are ambitious, and they are educated. They know how to communicate with people. They also aspire to a lot more than just moving. They don’t look at this like a dead-end job. This is purely a stepping stone.”
Doody said there are two reasons why Boston is a good location for the company — the number of students and the accessibility of the city.
“Number one, there is an enormous amount of college students in Boston with all the universities. Number two, it’s a big metro, and you don’t have a lot of the logistical constraints that a lot of the other large metros that we are launching in like Manhattan or LA,” he said. “Boston is actually pretty easy to navigate. It just makes it easy on our Bellhops to be able to get to jobs. It’s a huge market for us, and there’s a lot of people there that need our services.”
Close to 50 million Americans move every year, and 75 percent of them are considered “do-it-yourselfers” when it comes to moving, Doody said. The market is made up for the smaller scale moves.
Although the majority of Bellhops customers are young professionals and young families living in the city, Doody said that the company aims to appeal to college students moving in for the semester.
“It will make other college students so comfortable knowing that they are not hiring random strangers to come help them. They are truly their classmates coming to help,” he said.
Doody said Bellhops won’t be taking a significant amount of business away from traditional moving companies.
“For the most part, we are not taking jobs from the moving companies. Moving companies only serve about a quarter of the market. The market that we have, they aren’t thinking about getting a moving company, they are thinking about getting a UHaul,” Doody said. “So we don’t actually provide trucks. Our customers are still booking UHauls. We are just channeling all of the labor.”
When Bellhops graduate, they can’t continue to work as movers, but they are sometimes offered permanent jobs within Bellhops. Former Bellhops fill a quarter of the company’s headquarters positions, Doody said.
Several residents said the premise of Bellhops is a good one.
Rahul Daftari, 17, a student at Boston University’s College of Engineering, said employing students sounds like a good idea, but he has doubts about the popularity of the company after students have moved in.
“Crowdsourcing people is a good idea because there are a lot of people to do it,” he said. “My one concern is that it would be difficult to have demand year round, like after the initial rush periods when students are moved in.”
Justin Stoll, 31, of Allston, said there will definitely be enough student interest, and Bellhops reflects current economic trends.
“It sounds to me like a very good idea. BU certainly has plenty of students to do the work,” he said. “It seems to be following the trends in the economy towards ‘flexibilization.’”
Daniel Roberto, 52, of Back Bay, said the premise of the company was intriguing, but he has some questions about the consequences of hiring only students.
“It would work because people are always looking for extra cash and since Uber is so successful, it is intriguing,” Roberto said. “But what happens if I need to move tomorrow and people are on spring break? Are there contingency plans? Uber works because of its instantaneous connections. If you can work that out, why not?”
