So who is using Self-Storage?

On the face of it Self Storage facilities; with rows and rows of units, doors and shutters painted uniformly, with dangling padlocks, spanning several floors may seem like a desolate space, with people's personal belongings safely tucked away. But in fact, the units come alive during the day.

It varies from store to store, but currently we have slightly more domestic users, who are using the units while renovating, moving, travelling, dealing with the loss of a loved one or heading home for the summer from university.

However, the number of business users is on the rise, some stores have reported that up to 60% of their units are now being used by small and medium sized businesses.

Small Businesses Who are Benefitting from Self Storage

Ebay Sellers account for the largest number of our small business users, many of us have tinkered with EBay but these individuals are doing it on a much larger scale. They tend to use the space to store stock, possibly reconditioning products (e.g. Apple) and redistribute them. In the winter, you'll see them wrapped up with a woolly hat, clutching a warm cup of coffee, hovering over a laptop in one of our units fulfilling their orders.

No Business Rates

The number of online retailers continues to grow steadily year after year and is set to increase again this year. For a number of reasons some have decided against retail space and focus entirely online, possibly due to the ever increasing high street rents and business rates. The units are used for storing stock and fulfilling orders, these units typically have power points and a large number of our stores have Wi-Fi. We store everything from High End Fashion to Books to Beauty Products.

'We love being able to increase or decrease the amount of storage we need at short notice' owner of webuyanybrands.com

It's fascinating what is being imported and stored in some of our units. We have an importer of Italian wine, who supplies a large number of restaurants in North London. Another, imports Coconut Milk from Thailand and supplies a small handful of High End Department Stores, the ambient controlled units are perfect for keeping it at the right temperature.

Exporters tend to use our units as a collection point over a period of time, then they can sort and organise prior to a shipping container arriving to take it overseas and in some cases as far as China.

Deliveries

Construction firms often require additional space to securely store their tools and materials. One of our customers, an electricians firm recently secured a large 2-3 year contract locally, to avoid his team hanging around waiting for deliveries, they've decided to take a unit for storage, plus we will also be able to accept deliveries on their behalf allowing them to get on with their work.

Pop-Up Restaurants for those that want to carry out a bit of market research in a specific area before taking the plunge to open up a new restaurant, you can hire pop up kitchens, however, when they are not being used they need a place to be stored, hence why they are with Safestore.

Seasonal Businesses for those product services that are specifically linked to times of the year or special days, like Christmas, Valentine's Day and Mother's Day, they can use our units as mini depots. At Christmas one of our units was used to put together 'Gin' Hampers prior to sending out.

We do hope to feature more of the Small and Medium sized businesses using our units, so if you're happy to share your story do get in touch.

Safestore Holdings plc issued this content on 2016-01-15 and is solely responsible for the information contained herein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 2016-01-15 17:26:04 UTC

Original Document: http://www.safestore.co.uk/blog/2016/01/the-types-of-smes-that-use-self-storage/