5 reasons every online business needs to consider cheaper storage for the benefit of their company.

The rise in the amount of online businesses has been unprecedented within the last decade. As the high street seems to be crumbling in every town and city, the world of online businesses is flourishing and growing very quickly.

There are many benefits to running an online business, but one large disadvantage. The main disadvantage is the lack of storage. If your company requires stock and doesn’t drop-ship, then you’ve a space issue once your home garage is filled. The right storage can help to solve that issue, whilst also providing additional benefits. Here are 5 reasons you need to consider affordable self storage in London or nearby:

1. More Secure Than Your Home, Office Or Warehouse

Self storage units keep customers belongings safe. Expect features like various lock points and types, lighting, gating, 24/7 reception, CCTV and more. Belongings in storage locations are going to be more secure than in your home or office, because that is what the storage facility specialises in.

2. The Space

Rather than paying expensive warehouse contracts, or filling up your home with stock, you can use a storage unit as big or as small as you need. If you require a smaller or larger storage unit size at different times of the year, that can be easily arranged with a storage company like Storing.com. Your use of the different storage spaces is fully flexible, which is ideal for a growing company where needs for extra space will commonly fluctuate.

3. Peace Of Mind for your Online Business

Start-ups experience the pressure of where to have your things delivered or how to pay bills can be very stressful. When you use affordable self storage you can enjoy the peace of mind knowing that you have a storage solution you can use in the way that best suits your company. No long contracts or high costs, which ensures peace of mind for a company owner with a lot to focus on and bills to pay.

4. Better Costs

Warehouses and offices can be very expensive, especially if they are close to the city centre. Self storage not only costs less but it also comes free from tax, VAT and rates. These kinds of financial benefits are an attractive prospect for any company looking to minimise running costs.

5. Additional Benefits of Storage

There are usually lots of added benefits to using a storage unit. Primarily you’re going to get to know the staff who will do everything they can to help you. They may also offer extra services such as loading bays, free collection, receiving deliveries, arranging an insurance policy. There may even be the ability to rent vehicles and loading equipment for larger units when you have more stuff to store.

These 5 benefits to utilising self storage as an online retailer are just the beginning of how this kind of service could help you. Do inquire with local facilities and do speak to them about your storage needs. Making the most of this useful service could be a smart decision for your online venture, helping it grow and develop into the next important phase of growth.

Making the most of the space in your storage unit

Find out how to make the most of every bit of room in your storage unit because even when you have the cheapest storage and are benefiting from affordable self storage prices it still makes sense to only pay for the amount you really need to store your belongings.

Document Everything in your Storage Unit

You should be able to find everything you want in your self storage unit if you need regular access, especially the items stored in cardboard boxes that can be difficult to find at a later date. Whatever length of time you store items for, you need a complete inventory that documents where each item is stored in whatever way you find most helpful for reference purposes. But there’s no point in writing a list on paper if you’re going to lose it. Instead why not create your list in the ‘notes’ app on your phone, use your diary or an Excel spreadsheet – whatever is good for you. Make a diagram of your storage unit, write a reference with numbers or even Disney names that correspond with boxes – as long as you’re fully documenting locations then you have a way to identify where your items are and retrieve them when the time comes. The only rule is to make sure you keep your list or diagram up to date if you occasionally remove items from your self storage unit or move items around.

Keep Access Clear

If you have a large unit it can be tempting to fill it completely, but you need to make sure you keep a pathway to the back of the unit to enable you to easily find all of your belongings without having to unload the whole storage unit to get to something at the back. Keep any items you think you may want to access regularly at the front of the unit. If you are only storing as part of a moving house process keeping access may be less important but life can be unpredictable so it makes sense to plan for unexpected events. What starts as temporary storage can become a few months

Use All The Storage Space

Remember it’s not just about the square foot floor area of our storage units. They can be high so make sure you fill all of your vertical space in the unit by stacking items safely. Our 50 sq ft, 100 sq ft, 140 sq ft and 160 sq ft unit for instance is 237cm high (that’s 7′ 9″) so about as tall as the average ceiling height in a new property. If you are stacking boxes then make sure that they are sturdy enough to take the weight of what is placed on top of them. If stuff in boxes is being stored long term, they may damage the boxes below or start to lean if the stack is not secure. One option to prevent this is to stack on top of sturdy items like a dining table, other smaller tables or a chest of drawers.

Have A Little ‘Useful’ Area

Have a little area within the storage unit you rent where you keep scissors, a cardboard cutting knife, tape, labels, pens, paper and any other useful stuff for unpacking and packing cartons back up. This saves you having to leave the unit to pack and unpack. A useful tip is to leave some of your foldable garden furniture in the area – a small foldable table and chair if you have them.

Protect Your Belongings

Make sure you package your belongings properly whenever they are being moved to a different location. Use materials like foam, bubble wrap, sturdy cartons and labels. A storage provider will usually offer additional services such as a complete selection of packaging supplies. Different items need caring for in different ways so do your research – especially if your items are valuable, or they have sentimental value and cannot be replaced. Make sure you use a sturdy padlock and keep the key in a safe place. Most reliable storage providers will recommend insurance cover depending on the replacement value. This comes at an extra cost. The self storage industry has changed and our storage services are a smart alternative to self storage units in London – and will save you money.

Discover the cheapest storage units to rent in a location that’s right for you and at a better price…

Request an estimate of how much storage space you’ll need to rent for your stuff.

Contact us or speak to a member of our expert team at Storing. Give us a call on 08000 641 642 to find a storage unit size that is just right for you. Check our range of storage prices and get a quote (without obligation) for the right storage, right location and right price…

Is your loft storage really working for you? Or could cheap storage be a better option?

If you have a loft in your house it’s likely that you have found it very tempting to use loft storage for anything and everything in there. From Christmas decorations, to camping equipment, the loft serves as a storage space for pretty much anything, doesn’t it?

Have you considered self storage as a potentially better option than loft storage?

Whilst the loft is something that doesn’t cost any extra money to store things in, and it is within your house, there are extra benefits to self storage you might want to consider:

The Space On Offer

Your loft is likely to only be the same size as the overall footprint of your house. This offers a lot of opportunity for storage, but it is restrictive when it comes to storing lots of items or particularly large items. Cheap self storage, however, can be as big as you like which is a real benefit.

Ease Of Access

There are some rather big issues with storing items in the loft when it comes to the access. For example, it’s unlikely to be easy to store a large sofa up there. Can you imagine trying to get a large sofa into the loft? Being unable to move items in at ground level can be a real problem, depending on what it is you want to store. Access is not a problem though, when it comes to cheap self storage.

Safety

Whilst the loft may be able to store a few light items it may not be the best option when it comes to storing heavy items. The floorboards in the loft may mean that it isn’t actually safe for you to store certain things. Storing too much in a loft can result in you compromising the integrity of your homes structure.

Security

Items are as secure as they can be in your loft but they will never be as secure as they are in a self storage facility. In a self storage facility you have CCTV alarm systems, 24-hour reception, multiple lock points, floodlights and more. Storage companies keep your items secure and your home is never likely to be quite as secure as a storage unit would be.

Natural Safeguarding

In a home flooding, environmental damage, pests, and fire, are more likely to be an issue for your storage than they would be in a self storage facility. That is because self storage companies have huge safeguards in place to protect your items from this kind of damage.

Extra Benefits

There are many extra benefits to having a cheap storage unit such as:

• Help moving things
• Equipment like trolleys that you can borrow
• Reception taking your deliveries out of hours
• Paperwork storage and destruction
• Moving services

A self storage unit does, obviously, cost more than using your loft for storage. However, for a reasonable cost every month it could be worth considering if you want to access some of the benefits that you can only get from a self storage unit compared to your loft.

Could your storage setup be better with low-cost self storage units? Think about the benefits today to potentially boost your home organisation tomorrow.