Typically when people think of self storage units they think about that creepy guy at the end of the street with all the stuff stacked on his porch; when you look through the windows you can see that there is stuff everywhere. Rumor has it that the house and property were once beautiful, but the current occupant just has too much stuff.
Sounds like the perfect customer for a self storage company, right?
Individuals are not the only ones making use of self storage units these days though. A growing number of businesses are finding that the benefits of using a self storage unit apply as much if not more to them then to individuals.
The ascent of the internet has made office space unnecessary for businesses; all that is really needed to conduct operations is a laptop and a decent internet connection. However, depending on the type of business there may still be a need to have product on hand immediately (if necessary). That is just one example. Len Lothian Storage Depots in Edinburgh and Glasgow recently completed a survey of the different types of customers they had and came up with some pretty eclectic results.
“This review has been a really interesting exercise and for me it’s fascinating to see the wide variety of businesses that make use of our storage facilities,” said Alistair Lothian, company director.
What the business used varied from the one person operation that just needed a few cubic feet to the multi-national corporation that needed somewhere to store box after box of files. The types of business varied just as much. Along with a number of start-ups storing their products they have a unit full of bouncy castles and another of champagne.
A key factor for businesses is the relative ease of access and the low cost. Using a storage unit, although it is off-site from the business, is a much more affordable way of storing products and materials then if they had just gotten a bigger structure for their business. One of the customers for Len Lothian Storage Depots, Leonardo Di Canto of LSDC loves the flexibility and easy access.
As a supplier of fresh Italian food and wine to Edinburgh restaurants, Di Canto said, “Having immediate access to our stock has meant that we can fulfil orders quickly and easily. We’ve been able to increase the amount of storage needed by tenfold as the business has grown and developed”
Sources Used:
“Storage for Business -- from Bouncy Castles to Champagne.” Yahoo!Finance; 07 February 2011.
“Small Business Making More Use of Self Storage.” Self Storage Industry News; 09 July 2010.