How self storage in Auckland can benefit small business

For the small business owner 'small' can be a funny term!  You may only employ a few staff but the ever increasing amount of stuff that needs to be dealt with can be overwhelming.  Typically of enterprising Kiwi's your business may have started in the spare room or garage of your home as your business increases it is not always possible to sustain even the simplest of companies (or your marriage) in limited space. As you get larger, increased rent costs for business mean that self storage and mini storage facilities are becoming more and more necessary for storage of important business documents and items critical to your business to ensure smooth operation. Self Storage can save you $$$$ for your business The costs of renting additional space in todays commercial market will easily start at $1500 per month.  Consider instead a self storage or mini storage unit for $100 or less per month to store items such as business records or sales material that you don't need everyday access to. Safety for your business records A major advantage of a self storage facility is that they are often an environment less prone to water, fire and theft that can occur in a normal office environment.  The IRD alone requires that records are kept safely for a minimum of seven years and for your safety as a business owner, it is a great idea to protect your records offsite where they are safe.  This also protects you from accidental employee damage to records. Save your office and retail space for expansion Choosing store outdated records and excess stock where your business is located is always the obvious choice.  But the fact of the matter is that this takes up valuable space that prevents you from employing more staff, expanding your retail space and even adding a boardroom for customer interactions in many cases.  The bottom line is that it is far more cost effective solution to rent off-site space for un-neccessaries which will not only save you on rental but on heating and electricity as well.   So what kind of businesses often store?

Small Publishers  Independent publishers and businesses that publish material in the form of magazines, brochures, pamphlets or books often have an excess of physical stock which needs to be stored before being sent out to readers, subscribers and customers.   A self storage or mini storage unit is the perfect place for anyone publishing materials to store their stock before sending it out as you can upsize and downsize units as you need to and a good self storage or mini storage facility will let you ship product straight to your storage unit. Local Contractors and Landscapers

If you value your family relationships, home is not always the best place to accumulate and store everything business related, especially when it is in the form of industrial equipment such as drills, saws, forklifts, chainsaws etc.  The space in your vehicles is not infinite and as your business grows the demand for space will grow too.  A self storage or mini storage unit can be a great solution as you can set up the unit so your employees have access too and you can work on the business not just in the business!

Local Theatre 

Our local theatres (in West Auckland we have a couple) put on some incredible shows, but with that comes sets, costumes, props and many other items that will need to be stored in a safe environment for shows at a later date.  Self storage facilities also give theatres the flexibility to divide their storage into smaller units to easily categorise items by show to make it easier to track down those much needed items when needed.

Online Businesses

When online shops find success, they will often find their inventory growing faster than the space they have available to store it.  Self storage and mini storage can really help out here as you can also get containers shipped directly to your self storage facility for MAF clearances before you unload saving you a lot of valuable startup cash.  

Sales Reps

Sales reps will often find their customer base is on one side of the city and their head office is a good hour or two drive away.  A self storage unit is often a great solution to store samples in closer to your customer base, making you more available to your clients and enabling greater sales.  A great storage facility will often offer you a place to drop in for not only you inventory but also a space to sit down, have a coffee and access to wifi to prepare for you next meeting.

So what to take away from this?  Invest in growing your business, making use of the available capital that can be saved by storing items smartly and thinking outside the square.