Opening Up a Self Storage Facility

People are often heard complaining about their lack of storage space, but a great way around this is to rent self storage units, which normally come at relatively low costs and free up much needed space in homes. These are the reasons why self storage facilities seem to be worthy investments at the moment and could be needed even more so in the future. However, before opening up your own facility, there are several things to consider.

The first thing to find out is where the demand for such a service is the greatest. It is no use setting up a facility only to find out it is in the wrong location and your target audience lives nowhere nearby. The greatest demand will tend to come from areas with high population density and high property prices. Due to the demand for housing and the high prices, these people are likely to have less storage space available and are likely to welcome a storage service.

With this in mind, choosing the right location is very important. Due to the cost of property in these areas, the facility should be situated in the nearby countryside of the targeted town or towns. The trickiest decision has to be made between the cost of the property and the distance to the customers. The further away it is, the cheaper the property will be, but on the other hand the distance may put potential customers off using the service. This will be more important for those customers who may wish to access their storage units on a regular basis, as it negatively affects their travel costs in time and money.

Another important area to consider is the level of competition there is. With there already being some established companies, some areas will be harder to penetrate than others and sufficient time should be spent looking into this. With time put into research you should be able to figure out which areas are best to target. Also, just because some areas may already have storage services, time should be spent calling up the local companies to find out if they have many vacant units to gauge the level of demand. If they happen to be very busy and close to full capacity, the area may still have sufficient demand to move in to satisfy the remaining customers.

Another important aspect is the level of security, being the owner of the property a certain amount of responsibility will lie with you and you may have to compensate customers for the damage of loss of particular items. To counteract this insurance can be offered to cover any potential costs. Despite this, there should be high fencing, secure locks on all units and security guards where necessary.

Given the current economic climate, any investment is seen to be risky so all measures should be taken to ensure that this is a success. Therefore a large amount of preparation and research should be undertaken before investing a significant sum of money.

Harry is a business consultant and has had the opportunity to work with several different companies. During his career, a particular highlight was working for Storage London, where he made some life-long friends. For further information on the topics raised in this article visit ABC Selfstore.