Vanessa Troyer and Chris Farentinos first created the Elephantrunk in 1999. It was a locked outdoor box where a delivery driver could leave a package safely.
The husband-and-wife team thought the product would be a hit with people who were ordering online for the first time and didn’t want their big, bulky computer to go missing if it was left on the doorstep. But the original Elephantrunk box looked too imposing: They decided no one wanted a big metal box sitting outside the front door.
Now that Americans are buying more goods online and having much more than computers shipped to their doorsteps, Troyer and Farentinos’ company, Architectural Mailboxes LLC in Redondo Beach, has brought the Elephantrunk back, but smaller and prettier this time.
The old Elephantrunk, which never got past a prototype, was a bulky cube, measuring 3 feet on each side. The new version is smaller: 3 feet high, 18 inches wide and 16 inches deep. It comes in red, white, bronze and black.
Elephantrunk works like a postal drop box: A delivery person opens a hatch and inserts a package. When the hatch is closed, the package falls into the bottom and can be picked up through a locked door. The trunk can handle packages a bit larger than an average shoe box.
“If you order a pair of shoes, that should be fine; if it’s a pair of knee-high boots, it might not fit,” Troyer said. “But the fastest growing segment of online shopping is clothing, and that often comes in a bag.”
The Elephantrunk retails for $250 and went on sale last month at Home Depot stores and on HomeDepot.com.
Farentinos said the continued growth of online shopping should mean big business for Architectural Mailboxes, which also makes standard mailboxes.
“Locking and larger receptacles are definitely the trend,” he said. “People don’t need a smaller mailbox that holds a few envelopes. They need something bigger.”
Drop in Bucket
The Transportation Security Administration has quietly been moving X-ray body scanners made by Hawthorne’s OSI Systems Inc. out of the nation’s busiest airports and replacing them with a competitor’s scanners.
The TSA announced in September it would give $245 million to three companies – all OSI competitors – to develop the next generation of airport scanners.
Yet OSI posted solid results for the quarter ended Sept. 30 and investors seem barely interested in the company’s body scanner business.
Deepak Chopra, OSI’s chief executive, said the company didn’t sell a single body scanner to the agency in its 2012 fiscal year, though it has sold them to the Department of Defense and other customers such as nuclear power plants. Even then, scanner sales aren’t a big part of the company’s business.
“Our whole focus is a broad product portfolio,” Chopra told investors on a recent conference call. “Definitely body scanners are an important portion of our portfolio, but it’s insignificant revenue.”
Going forward, OSI expects much of its revenue will come from providing fully staffed security systems rather than simply selling equipment. For example, the Mexican tax and customs agency will pay OSI $900 million over the next six years to provide security scanning services at customs checkpoints.
Body scanners from OSI and other companies raised travelers’ ire a few years ago because they produce images of a seemingly naked body. The TSA said it was moving OSI scanners out of large airports not because of that controversy, but because scanners that use different technology are faster and can reduce airport congestion.
Low Battery
Torrance company Enova Systems Inc. was booted from a New York Stock Exchange exchange last week after months of increasingly dire warnings that the company was out of compliance because it has lost money for too long.
In its final warning, issued Oct. 24, the NYSE MKT exchange told Enova the company is in such bad shape that its survival is unclear.
“It appears questionable, in the opinion of the exchange, as to whether the company will be able to continue operations,” the exchange wrote, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
The stock was removed from the exchange Oct. 31 and now trades over the counter. It closed Oct. 26 – its last day of trading on NYSE MKT – at 6 cents, down from a 52-week high of 55 cents set in January.
Enova, founded in 1976 as U.S. Electricar Inc., makes drive train components and software for electric vehicles. It first focused on electric cars, then shifted toward electric trucks and buses. Neither strategy has worked and the company has lost more than $155 million over the years.
Now, in the past few months, the company has also lost its chief executive and most of its workforce. Michael Staran resigned as chief executive in June and the company that month dropped about 24 of its 30 employees.
John Micek, the company’s chief financial officer, has taken on CEO responsibilities. He did not return calls for comment.
Staff reporter James Rufus Koren can be reached at [email protected] or (323) 549-5225, ext. 225.
