How Businesses Can Benefit From Self-Storage

Self-storage units offer flexibility and help SMEs avoid paying costly rent on unnecessary offices, whilst allowing them to cost effectively adapt to changes in business circumstances. Here are some helpful tips of how different businesses can benefit from incorporating self-storage units within their business model.

Tradesmen

Self-storage provides an ideal solution and offers a secure alternative to storing equipment in your home or van. Using self-storage for business purposes can help you store more equipment and backup stock so you don’t run out of vital parts or have equipment stolen from your vehicle.

Tools are crucial to the livelihood of most tradesmen, they are often expensive and can be difficult to replace in a hurry. Managing your business directly from a storage unit provides greater security and ensuring your storage facility offers 24/7 access, will mean the equipment that’s vital for running your business is accessible at short notice and whenever you need it.

We recommend choosing a drive-up storage unit, it will help you avoid carrying heavy or awkward equipment over long distances. Renting a larger unit will help keep things organised and ensure you can find parts and tools quickly and efficiently so you won’t incur delays getting to the job.

Hospitality/Events

In addition to freeing up space in your venue, using a storage unit to store excess stock and furniture offers businesses in the hospitality industry the flexibility to adapt to seasonal changes and changing business circumstances. In addition to greater flexibility, using a storage unit to support your hospitality business helps avoid the expense of moving into larger premises as your business grows and you’re not tied down to long leases which saves your business money as paying business rates and Council Tax is not required.

The long-term success of your hospitality business depends on your ability to control costs and plan your budget across seasons. Most storage facilities operate a 7 day notice period, which allows you to rapidly adapt, rather than waiting for long-term leases to expire before you can make necessary changes.

Retailers

In the increasingly challenging retail environment, retailers must control overheads whilst ensuring stock is stored securely, but is also accessible whenever required. Self-storage units provide the ideal solution for retailers operating from small shops or online.

Operating with tight budget and space constraints means many small retailers have to limit the items they can sell to customers. Adapting a storage unit as an overflow stockroom or as ‘the’ stockroom for your store, increases retail space in store and will save money. The additional retail space will allow you to increase your customer offer and display it more effectively in store. Seasonal display units can be retained and stored remotely at the end of each season and reused in the future.

Managing sales stock is always challenging, but the extra storage space will help you rotate stock and even keep key pieces across seasons, meaning you don’t have to reduce prices to clear storage space for deliveries of stock for the next season.

Using a storage unit will help you avoid being tied down to long and expensive leases and saves your business money, as paying business rates and Council Tax is not required.

Corporate Archiving

The majority of businesses rent their office space, which can be especially expensive if they’re located in city centres or other prime locations. This means that every square foot counts and to ensure staff enjoy a constructive working environment, they can’t be squeezed into a corner or work at a desk surrounded by boxes and clutter. This helps staff to take pride in their place of work and helps create a happy efficient work place.

With regulations such as GDPR requiring businesses to securely store all customer information for a number of years (both digital and paper), traditional businesses such as solicitors, accountants, architects, estate agents, bookkeepers, insurers, tax advisors, consultants, schools, doctors surgeries and care homes need to securely store legacy paperwork as it has become a key responsibility.

We recommend keeping a record in the office of the location and content of each archived box within your storage unit. This will ensure that if an access request is received for an archived document, it can be located quickly in compliance with regulations.

Ground Workers

Amateur horticulturalists and professional ground workers both depend on their gardening tools, but professionals rely on their equipment for their livelihood. The bigger the business becomes, the more professionals require dedicated space to keep their vital tools safe and secure. Managing their work from a garden shed or from the back of their van is impractical and leaves equipment vulnerable to damage or theft.

Without a designated storage space for tools, time can be wasted looking for equipment. Managing your business from a storage unit helps to ensure easy access to kit, reduces clutter at home or in your work van and protects everything in extreme weather conditions.

Putting your tools away damp or not checking them for damage may cause your equipment to degrade, but storing them in a well ventilated, dry and secure environment will extend the life of your equipment, saving you money. For information about storing your mechanical equipment see our helpful tips.

Ebayers

Many people now run their businesses exclusively through digital market places such as Ebay, Gumtree or Facebook Marketplace. The best storage facilities will accept and hold courier deliveries for their business customers, enabling you to dedicate all your focus on selling.

To run your business effectively from a storage unit, you need to ensure you have sufficient space in the unit you choose to not only securely store your stock, but you should also dedicate some floor space as a packing and wrapping area. This will help you to quickly fulfil orders and will avoid damaging the items before theyare sent out.

Another key consideration is insurance cover. insurastore.com provides cover to protect your stock in storage, but whichever provider you choose, you should keep an accurate inventory of the items you are storing. To avoid the need to be constantly updating your insurance provider, as the value of the items in your unit change, we recommend covering yourself for the full replacement cost of the items and requesting cover for the maximum estimated stock value you anticipate storing at any one time. If you rely on the income from your online selling, it’s better to be over-insured than under-insured to avoid losing out if the worst should happen.