Shortly after he began working at Boston University, Shawn Stone noticed students needed something other than cement blocks to raise their beds off the ground.
The realization became RackRaiser.
Stone, currently a manager for vending supplies at BU, said he came up with the idea about eight years ago when he realized how much it cost the university to clean up the cement blocks students would leave around. Stone said he originally pitched the idea to Boston College, and they were very interested in it.
Stone said he wanted to find a solution to the problem of the cement blocks that would benefit both students and administrators.
‘[RackRaiser] was a good thing for the university,’ Stone said. ‘People would leave cinder blocks, so it would be expensive for the university to remove them.’
He said he saw the opportunity to create the product after he found nothing else, other than the blocks, that could do what RackRaiser was going to do.
‘No one else was doing it,’ Stone said. ‘Everyone else was selling cinder blocks.’
But Stone said he believes RackRaiser will not continue to enjoy the successes it has had in the past for much longer.
‘It’s got a short life to it,’ he said. ‘The cost to get into it is very high, in order to make any money you need to do a lot of volume, and we don’t do that much.’
Stone said he believes his business will soon be decreasing in popularity because colleges are buying beds that are adjustable without the advent of RackRaiser. BU has begun to purchase such beds, which are currently in the Student Residences at 10 Buick St.
‘It will probably last a few more years,’ he added.
Stone said the high cost of making the RackRaiser comes from the fact that it is completely made out of metal. The devices are quite expensive, ranging in cost from $70 to $90 for a 20-inch or 25-inch raiser.
Regardless of the price, many freshmen purchase the device in their first few weeks of school, to get the added storage space under their beds. College of Arts and Sciences freshmen Danielle Schwarz got her RackRaiser to create more space to store her items.
‘The extra room really does come in handy,’ she said. ‘I am able to fit my larger items underneath the bed.’
Schwarz did note that when she was coming to BU, the school had sent her a letter saying the raisers were really the only choice if she wanted the extra room under her bed. She said she did not know there were other options, but would have looked into them if there she had known.
‘I didn’t know there were any other options. I was told I could only use RackRaiser,’ she said. ‘I would definitely look into alternative modes as long as I still get the same height.’
Stone, being an employee of the university, does not make deals for RackRaiser directly with BU, but allows his wife, Susan, to conduct the transactions. Stone’s job does not deal much with the purchase of RackRaiser, as his position is based more around the laundry services at the university.
Stone claimed his position at the university did not contain any type of conflict of interest, since he is not involved as a retailer of the product or a purchasing agent for the school.
‘We are just treated like any other vendor,’ Stone said.
Schwarz agreed with Stone, and said it is acceptable to have one person working for both RackRaiser and BU, but added the university should offer other products, as well.
‘I don’t think it is OK for BU to imply that [RackRaiser] is the only product we can use,’ she said. ‘We should have more choices.’
The Boston University Lifebook, which includes the rules and regulations of the school, says lofting a bed is allowed, but only under certain circumstances. It also imposes height restrictions on lofts, materials the lofts must be made of and regulations on the location of a lofted bed.
However, the Lifebook does not name RackRaiser as the only company authorized for lofting a bed, but does discuss the use of cinder blocks on campus.
‘Students are not permitted to bring cinder blocks into on-campus residences; therefore the use of cinder blocks is prohibited for [lofting] or any other purposes,’ the Lifebook reads.
Stone declined to give any financial information about the company, as in how much they make a year, how many RackRaisers they actually sell, or how much money each school makes off the contract.
‘Every school does contracts,’ he said. ‘We pay commission differently to each school.’
Stone said because they are under contract with these schools, they are unable to provide specific financial details.
Schwarz said she disagreed with the claim that the school makes money off the sale of RackRaiser.
‘They get enough money from us,’ Schwarz said. ‘I don’t think it is fair to enforce a monopoly.’
Currently, RackRaiser sells its product at 22 different colleges, most of which are in the Northeast. However, Stone said they do sell to some schools a greater distance away, including Texas.
