Do you own your own brick-and-mortar business? If yes, it’s likely storage is a concern of yours. Many businesses have nowhere near enough storage and have to outsource to third-party warehouse providers. If you don’t start storing things away from your business’s physical location, it could become cluttered. A cluttered business is a dangerous one. You’ll inevitably end up having to pay compensation if you do not clear space, as employees and customers will injure themselves. This post will explore this topic in more detail, telling you what solutions you have available to you if you need more storage.
Renting Container Storage
Container storage is one of the best types of storage you can rent. The reason for this is that containers are typically much cheaper than lockers are to rent. You also get the added bonus of being able to access the items you’ve got stored away at any time of the day or night. When you rent a storage locker in a warehouse or storage facility, you usually have to book yourself in to come and remove items. Whether it’s secure container storage in Hull or container storage somewhere else in the United Kingdom, you need to make sure that you find the most reliable company you can work with. You can determine a company’s reliability by reading reviews posted about it on its Google Review or Trustpilot pages. Customer feedback on the business’s website can also give you insight into what working with it is going to be like.Before you take out a lease on a container, you need to take some measurements and figure out how much storage space you are going to need. It’s sometimes possible to split containers with other businesses to save money. The kind of things you should store in containers include excess stock or furniture that you no longer have space for in your brick-and-mortar location. Make sure that you catalog every single item that you store in your container. If you do not catalog items, you run the risk of losing track of what has been stored. If you lose track of what you’ve stored, you could lose money. Stock that you’ve lost track of won’t get sold, meaning you have lost out on the opportunity to get rid of it.
Hiring Out Storage Locker
A storage locker is an alternative to a container. A locker is essentially just a garage, either housed inside an indoor storage facility or outside. The former is the most popular type in the United Kingdom, though it is possible to find outdoor facilities. With commercial property burglaries on the rise, indoor facilities are much safer. While it’s uncommon for people’s storage lockers to be broken into, it’s not unheard of. Hiring out a storage locker will give you somewhere safe and secure to store stock or anything else you can no longer keep in your business’s actual premises.Make sure that if you are renting out an outdoor locker you find one that’s properly protected. Ideally, there needs to be alarms, cameras, and dog patrols. Dog patrols deter burglars. In addition to security, you also need to think about ease of access. Outdoor facilities are typically much easier to get into after hours. Indoor facilities usually lock their doors at a certain time. You’ll have a key to your outdoor locker, meaning you can turn up whenever and let yourself in. You may need to book online to do this, though.
Building Extra Space
An alternative to renting a storage container or locker is to go ahead and build some extra space on your business’s land. In the United Kingdom, it is not uncommon for businesses to have a little extra space out the back of their brick-and-mortar premises. Unfortunately though, getting planning permission to build outhouses for storage can be very difficult and ridiculously expensive. If you are going to build an outhouse, make sure that you enlist a professional construction company’s support. A construction company will be able to ensure your storage facilities are built in a timely, efficient manner.Alternatively, you can build up. In other words, you can convert your business’s loft or attic into storage space. It is not uncommon for people to convert the lofts and attics in their private homes into extra bedrooms. Unless the upper floors in your business are let out as residential properties, converting them into storage space is a great idea. Make sure that you properly order things so that you can find them again when you need to. Don’t make the mistake of just bundling everything into your storage area without thinking about where you are putting things and how you are going to access them again in the future.
Utilizing Warehousing Services
You may also want to consider hiring a warehousing service to store stock for you. Warehousing services are great businesses to work with because, in addition to storing things, they will post items out to customers. If you run a drop shipping business, a warehousing service is the ideal partner. These companies can be very expensive to work with, though. The reason for this is that they will handle all product shipping for you. They’ll also handle restocks, allowing you to send products directly from your supplier to the warehouse so that they can be sent to customers. There are many warehousing services operating today, so you shouldn’t have trouble finding one.When hiring a warehousing service, the main thing you need to think about is speed. How fast can the company you hire ship products to your customers for you? If products aren’t shipped quickly, nobody is going to want to do business with you. The best way to find out what a company’s shipping speeds are like is to take a look at its reviews. In addition to reviews, check out independent guides and blog posts and see what customers are saying about your chosen warehousing service.
As a business owner, storage is something you need to think about. The more space you have, the more stock your business can hold onto. This post’s guidance will hopefully help you to make storing products and stock easier. Give special consideration to containers and lockers, since they are usually self-managed and give you more autonomy than warehousing and other similar services.
.jpg)
.jpg)
