Benefits of self-storage for businesses

Benefits of self-storage for businesses

If you’re a business owner, you’re probably familiar with the problem of needing more room than you have. With square footage at a premium across many of the UK’s major cities, it’s not as easy as it once was to fit everything you need to operate your business into your premises. This can lead to tricky decisions: do you try to find the money to expand, or scale down your operations to fit the space you can afford?

Fortunately, there is another way. Self-storage facilities can be a real boon for small business owners: in fact, the latest figures from the Self Storage Association found that 70% of the enterprises that use them have ten employees or fewer. When you use self-storage, all costs of maintenance, cleaning and security are covered within the contract, making it simple to budget and to calculate a business case for.

In this post we’ll take you through some of the business benefits of self-storage – including a few you might not have thought of!

Flexible growth

Many small firms operate on tight margins, which can necessarily lead to inflexibility and lost opportunities sometimes. Suppose you found a fantastic deal on materials that would improve your long-term growth prospects – but you had to pass it up, because you had nowhere safe to store the goods?

If you’re buying this much stock regularly, it might make sense to expand your premises. However, more square footage increases your operating expenses and may raise your business taxes, as well as requiring extra staff. Your opportunity may start to look like a risk.

Situations like this are where self-storage really shines. You can rent a unit on a weekly basis if you like, and once you don’t need it any more, end the contract – simple as that. Meanwhile, you enjoy all the competitive benefits of your deal, with minimal impact on your bottom line.

Business archiving

If your business deals with high volumes of paper documents – and despite the growth of the paperless office, many still do – then you need somewhere safe and secure to store them. You’ll need a racking system to make the paperwork easy to organise, and the environment needs to be clean and dry to prevent deterioration. Most of all, if the documents hold sensitive information, your storage space needs to be secure in order to meet your legal obligations.

Again, there’s a perfect answer to your needs – self storage. It’s simple to fit with a racking system (we’ll even do it for you, just ask!), humidity-controlled, and highly secure. Only you have the key to your unit, and only customers and staff can access the site, so there’s no need to worry about data getting into the wrong hands.

Parcel receipt and storage

This is a big benefit for all you eBay, Etsy and Amazon entrepreneurs. If you run your business via an online marketplace, it’s likely parcels will be coming and going all the time – and you can’t be in your home to receive them 24 hours a day. But it only takes a few missed deliveries or delays to undermine a good reputation.

There’s a great solution: self-storage. There’s staff on our sites all day long, so there’ll always be someone here to take your parcel and store it for you – all you have to do is let us know about the delivery times in advance. We can even hand packages on to couriers to be delivered.

We even sell a great range of packaging at our retail stores, including bubble wrap and cardboard boxes in all shapes and sizes – so we’re a one-stop shop for the online seller.

Pallet storage

If you’re a retailer or a construction manager, you’ll know how handy a good load of pallets can be – as well as how much space they take up when they’re sitting around doing nothing. Space Station offers units that are ideal for storing your pallets of all different sizes, keeping them handily arranged by size and type.

Since our premises are humidity-controlled, you can store them for as long as you like without the health risks of mould and mildew. Our storage centres are designed with drive-in bays and we’ve got trolleys and fork lifts on hand, so we’re used to vehicles of all sizes coming and going!

Seasonal stock storage

Is your warehouse overflowing with Christmas decorations, calendars or sun cream? While we can’t help you sell your hard-to-shift stock, we can give you somewhere secure to leave it until its peak time rolls around again, freeing up room and manpower in your on-site facilities for fast-moving stock that’s earning you money.

Again, flexibility is key here: you can expand or reduce your space with very little forward notice, allowing you to react to changing market conditions with minimal impact on your costs. According to the Self Storage Association, business users of self-storage use a much wider range of unit sizes than private customers – anything from ten square feet to over a thousand.

Storing valuables

If your business has physical assets that are worth a lot to you, storing them on-site can be a risk – or at least an expense. While investing in your own premises’ security is always a smart idea, many small firms will struggle to achieve anything like the levels of protection we provide at Space Station without it cutting into their core business.

Monitored CCTV, high perimeter fencing and PIN codes are just some of the security features we offer with our units – not to mention a sturdy, locked metal door that only you have the key to.

Naturally, any valuables stored with us need to be insured, and we can arrange a policy with highly competitive rates that reflect the level of protection we offer.

No business rates or council tax hikes

Your storage units at Space Station don’t count as an extension of your premises, even though in many ways you can treat them like one. This makes accounting simple and means more of your money goes into your business, rather than to the taxman –renting self-storage will never increase the rateable value of your property, and you can keep enjoying the benefits of extra space.

This can be especially valuable in cities like London, where high street retailers are all too familiar with the looming threat of regular business rate hikes. Let us deal with the taxes, leaving you free to operate the way you want to.

Space to renovate

If your office needs a new lick of paint or you’re planning an extension, you’ll need somewhere safe to put your goods and equipment while the works are being carried out. The same goes if you’re between places while relocating. We can offer as much storage as you need, for as long as you need, and all your furnishings and assets will be safely under lock and key until you need them again.

Too many businesses put off upgrading their premises because of the headaches associated with moving everything in and out again, but our free removals service makes all that simple – and your employees will thank you when they turn up to a freshly-refurbished workplace!

These are just a few of the advantages self storage can offer businesses, and we’re sure savvy entrepreneurs can come up with a few more.

We do plenty of business with enterprises and private customers alike, and we’re happy to chat more about how we can help serve your particular trade – give us a call on 0800 404 6969 or fill in an enquiry form and we’ll be in touch.