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William Donohoe, owner Shipping Shack |
“A lot of people are moving back to the Mainland because it’s too expensive to live here now,” he says. Donohoe used to help a household move about five times a month. Now he’s helping a dozen or more households move to the Mainland every month. At one point he’s even packed and shipped items in storage to an owner who had already moved.
Donohoe says not everyone is moving because of the economy. Summer is a time when he normally sees an increase in moves, but the numbers are far greater than a seasonal blip. “They’re moving because business is slow and they can’t make it in Hawaii,” he says.
Carl Bonham, the executive director of the Univer-sity of Hawaii Economic Research Organization, points out that for the past three years Hawaii’s inflation has increased at a higher rate than the Mainland’s. "Our economy is slowing and people are losing jobs," he says. "It's possible that those are the reasons people are relocating."
The increased freight business doesn’t mean it’s all good business for Donohoe. His over the counter business, which is any package under 150 pounds, has shrunk 40 percent in recent months. In an effort to recover those sales he started offering free gas in August. Customers who spent $50 received a $10 voucher at the Shell station across the street, and those who spent $100 got a $25 voucher. He’s also been picking up packages for customers in Waikiki with an electric car.
“I try to not to get pinned to one aspect of the business,” he says. “A lot of your small businesses fail because they don’t diversify.”
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