Back in 2011, before the pandemic hit, Doug Baldasare, a Radnor High School graduate and Villanova native, came up with a way to charge people’s phones and keep them in stores longer, writes Joseph N. DiStefano for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

He came up with ChargeItSpot.

“We would build, deploy and manage — free and secure to customers — these phone-charging lockers in retail stores, so people would spend more time shopping while they waited for their phone and spend more,” he said.

Store owners paid a fee to put the lockers in their stores.

By 2020, he had 150 employees and 7,000 lockers at Bloomingdales, Gap, UnderArmor, Norstrom, and Target in 42 states and Canada.

Then the pandemic hit. Most stores closed for six to 12 months. He was losing money until he seized on another problem.  

Now, in addition to his charging lockers, his company also offers Asset Recharge Centers that inventory and track the tens of thousands of communication devices companies buy for employees that get lost, stolen, or broken every year.

The Centers are used by airline baggage handlers, grocery chains, hospitals, and delivery services.

Read more about Doug Baldasare and ChargeItSpot’s unique phone stations in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Fox Business News takes a look at the ChargeItSpot phone charging lockers.