Doorage, a storage company, recently expanded from Chicago to Milwaukee March 25.
According to their website, it’s the first wave of expansion for Doorage, which will serve Milwaukee residents, those living in Waukesha, Pewaukee, Brookfield, Mequon, New Berlin, Fox Point, Racine and Kenosha.
Sean Sandona, CEO of Doorage, said the company is less than two years old and is focused on something different than other companies; they focus on what other companies do wrong and how they can improve on those things.
Sandona said he focused on the importance of researching what other companies do poorly when Doorage was created and found negative reviews where companies failed to make sure his company stayed in business.
“(Storage) is supposed to be a service that makes people’s lives better and these big companies had so many negative reviews. Now, negative reviews are going to happen, you can’t please every customer. However, your goal should be to please every customer,” Sandona said,” Number one failure point, lost items. Ok, let’s develop a very exact process and a technology-implemented warehouse management system that eliminates 99.99% of lost items. I’m proud to say after one year of operation serving countless numbers of customers, we haven’t lost a single item.”
He said they strategized before launching in order to avoid mistakes that others have made.
“The second big failure point was damage. You look back at how items were wrapped in these reviews and you think, well of course they’re going to get damaged,” Sandona said. “You can’t just throw some plastic on it and expect a wood furniture piece not to get damaged. So, we developed a whole packing strategy, based on the customer’s desires and the value of the items and we pack accordingly.” One such negative review was from Vicie R. on Yelp said her items were damaged and chewed into by mice while in storage
Doorage also uses a unique packing system for the more valuable items called DoorPack, in which the items are custom crated to save money and relieve the risk of damage, Sandona said.
“Once it’s wrapped, you could pretty much roll it off the back of a bus and it’ll be fine,” Sandona said.
However, damage does happen and Sandona said he used the negative reviews of other companies to help create a streamlined process when items are damaged.
“If something happens with those bigger companies and somebody wants to make a claim, there is an eight-page claim form and customers have to call again and again and again,” Sandona said,” It’s simple. With Doorage, the claim gets handled by email. There’s no lengthy form to hope the customer goes away. We handle it. Right away.”
Some Marquette students said they were interested in Doorage on hearing the guarantees with safety of items, the systems they use, and their success rates. Ashford Dmello, a sophomore in the College of Engineering, said he appreciated the safety steps that Doorage takes when they package their items, as well as the option to pick up the items at his dorm. Dmello is from the United Arab Emirates and spends shorter breaks with friends in the U.S. Last summer, Dmello needed storage but said that it was difficult to move all his items.
“For the transport, I had to give my items to my friend to bring to the company which is bad for me because it’s a difficult job by myself,” Dmello said.
Another reason Dmello said he was was discouraged by the other storage company was the cost.
“It’s too expensive and not worth it for the most part. I had to split the cost with a friend who was also looking for storage,” Dmello said.
“Price can be a problem for a lot of college students,” Sandona said.
“Shortly after we launched, students in Chicago said, this is perfect. It’s better than storage offering through college boxes and dorm movers and it’s cheaper. So, we shifted a big part of our focus towards students,” Sandona said,” We need to bring affordability to the students. Our pricing model allows us to offer a better price than the other national student-focused companies. We’ve done pricing comparisons and comparative to collegeboxes.com and student movers, we’re sometimes 50%, 60% less and that all adds into the affordability of college.”
Coner McFarlin, sophomore in the College of Engineering, also said a huge part of his decision for storage if he needed it would be the price.
“I would consider it if they were cheaper and I had heard good things about them,” McFarlin said about Doorage.
“Doorage is a company to make people’s lives easier and better. For students especially, we’re going to take care of everything for you, it’s cost-efficient compared to other resources and you don’t have to pack and transport it. If your family comes up for move-out weekend, do you want to spend time packing everything up, loading everything up, moving it to a ratty storage facility? No, enjoy that time with your family,” Sandona said, “There’s so much to do in Milwaukee. Use that time to explore, not to worry about storing your stuff. Doorage is going to make it easy on you.”
