Self Storage - what do I choose?!

A quick guide to stock storage for your eBay business

There's only so long you can store your stock in your Mum's conservatory without kissing your inheritance goodbye. We recently decided that the time had come to look at self storage when 2 pallets of furniture arrived in the cul-de-sac and were consequentially unloaded into the front room making it impossible for Mrs Neenan to get off the couch, let alone switch on the TV.It became apparent that self storage was the answer, but for those of us that don't spend our lives moving from one house to another, the term self storage facility is a bit bewildering. What exactly do you go for? How much does it cost? What the hell does £11 psf mean??

Well you probably all know that psf means per square foot (but I didn't) and was totally ignorant as to how you calculate such measurements. Here's a quick guide for thickos like me:

To calculate square foot simply times the length of the room by the width of the room.

Work out how much space you need (in our case 300 square foot) and start the search (or if you read this guide you'll go straight to Space Station Self Storage). The reason I'm writing this guide is that we exhausted every possible angle on self storage. It took me weeks and weeks to find the perfect solution and i want to share it with you.

Our first idea was a large garage. A lock up garage is bargain storage at average £40 pm. West London Storage Facilities don't come much cheaper, however garages carry their own price. I must have rung every insurance company on the web and not one would insure our stock in a lock-up garage - not a good move.

I then came across an ad for 'budget business space' in an industrial estate just south of Uxbridge town centre. Budget business space sounded great, and it did look promising until I found out that all the cheap storage prices were ex VAT and i couldn't squeeze my largest items down the corridor to the allocated room.

Running out of options (or so I thought) I signed up with several office brokers who subsequently called me with at least 5 unsuitable options daily. This became very frustrating - "I DO NOT WANT A SERVICED OFFICE! For the 5th and final time today! I WANT BUSINESS STORAGE... S.T.O.R.A.G.E!!"

Finally, just before Mrs Neenan really did give Mark's inheritace to charity I did what I was dreading all along, and rang several (ok, all) the self storage facilities you see on the side of motorways and roundabouts nationwide. I didn't want to use one of these places because I presumed they were full of gypsies (just joking) but more suitable for people moving house. I didn't think they provided suitable storage for a small business. 

But how wrong I was. After ringing all of the west London self storage facilities I realised that they were all willing to drop their prices and bend over backwards to accomodate us. (ha ha, that sounds so rude).

Space Station Self Storage near Stockley Park West Drayton offered us the best deal. They even built us our own 300 sq ft room to our exact specification within a week! When I went to vist the west london storage facility I was thrilled to discover that I no longer had to heave solid wood coffee tables and side boards around. Space Station have evrything you need for eBay business stoarge including goods lifts, trollies, loading bays and large spacious corridors. It's easy for customers to collect from our storage facility. Space Station Stockley Park is very well connected for the M4 and M25 and has sensible opening hours. Staff are friendly and very helpful and I recommended them to anyone with a thriving eBay business.