Christmas is coming – in fact, as a business owner you are already thinking ahead and preparing for it. If you sell products, you’re probably already waist high in boxes of stock. But why are you cramming it into your shop already, when we have another solution?

There are a number of benefits of using self-storage for your seasonal stock – both for your own peace of mind, and to help you maximise your profits this festive season.

More space means more Christmas stock

Christmas may be your busiest time of year, and you really want to maximise on profit. How frustrating is it to run out of your top-selling products and see your competitors taking your sales?

With a self-storage unit you can order in plenty of extra stock so that you know you have enough to make every customer happy. With a range of unit sizes, we have all the space you need – your very own warehouse, making your online shop as large as any major retailer.

The season of peace and goodwill for online sellers

Christmas is a time of peace and goodwill – when our homes fill up with extra family coming to stay, overexcited children home from school and furniture squashed to one side to make way for a twinkling tree.

If you are an online retailer working from home, the last thing you need at Christmas is to fill the spare room and hallway with giant boxes. Keep the peace and goodwill at home by moving your stock out.

Health and Safety at work

It’s not necessarily the first thing you think of when you’re ordering in your stock, but it has to go somewhere. If you have a high street shop, with customers browsing your shelves out front and staff filling orders in the back, you don’t want to risk hurting anyone from an overbalanced avalanche of boxes.

Keep your passageways clear and your fires doors accessible, your staff room clear and your shop spacious, with a second storeroom.

Avoid negative reviews and fill more orders

With so much extra stock to shift it’s not surprising things get misplaced. The competition for online retailers is fierce, with negative reviews doing a lot of damage to your sales. Customers want to know their purchases will be posted quickly, and that you have everything in stock as they buy it.

With extra space in your self-storage unit, you can place boxes of stock on racking – which we can supply – so that your products are easy to find, organised, and less likely to be damaged or crushed by the boxes on top.

You’ll be able to keep track of your stock, find and ship it quickly and keep your positive reviews coming in.

A cost-effective expansion for your business

There are plenty of benefits to self-storage contracts with Cookes. Our contracts are flexible and we offer great rates for short-term contracts – so you get seasonal space without long-term tie-ins.

Our CCTV and PIN coded access give you the extra security you need to be sure your additional seasonal stock won’t attract the wrong attention.

Our storage units are indoors – dry, clean and ready-prepared with racking if you need it.

We’ll even come and get your stock for you, saving you transport from your shop to your storage unit. And once you are set up, you can have new orders delivered directly to your unit.

Once in your unit, all you need to do is bring along the orders to create your own packing and distribution warehouse – just until the festive frenzy is over and you’re ready for the January sales.

If you need seasonal self-storage, call Cookes Storage today on 0121 250 5055. Our team have the space solutions you need.

Business Self Storage

December has arrived, and most businesses are gearing up for the busiest few weeks of the year. The 5 weeks of the festive season can account for up to half a year’s revenue for many small retailers. With every retailer – on and offline – in competition for consumers, it’s vital that business owners have prepared in advance.

Small businesses in particular have to juggle a variety of factors over the festive season that can impact on their ability to meet customer needs – staff holidays and sickness, cash flow and holiday pay, delivery demands and increases in theft. And there’s still the Christmas party to organise.

One aspect that’s vital to your sales this December is having enough of every product in place, particularly popular items that make up a large part of your profits. With online shopping, next day deliveries and plenty of options, consumers are not likely to hang around long if you hang up the ‘out of stock’ sign.

The issue many small businesses face is a lack of space. Whether you have a physical shop or sell entirely online, all the additional stock has to be put somewhere while you wait for the orders to flood in.

Stacking haphazardly in corridors and backrooms will likely result in items being damaged or lost, while the time taken to hunt down each order for wrapping and stamping all adds to delays in sending items out and meeting customer demands.

The advantages of offsite business storage

There’s an easy solution to toppling box piles though, and that’s taking advantage of short term business self-storage units. Off-site storage has a lot of benefits for smaller businesses – in fact more and more retailers are using them on a regular basis, or running their business from their storage site entirely.

Here’s why inventory storage could be the solution – and bring you a big increase in profits this Christmas.

1. Rental agreements are on a short term or monthly basis – no year-long contracts and huge overheads here.
2. The size of the unit you take is also flexible, so you don’t need to pay for a mass of empty space – just take the unit that meets your needs.
3. Indoor off-site storage is dry and clean. There’s no need to worry about stock getting dirty or damaged. An indoor business storage facility is often temperature controlled as well – so even food and drink can be stored safely.
4. With CCTV and often PIN access controls in place, your stock is safe and secure. Some stock storage facilities even offer a reception service, accepting deliveries so that you don’t need to worry about time spent waiting while you could be out working.
5. If your business is already overflowing with boxes, crates and festive chaos, but you don’t have time to move it all, then the right self-storage providers can even solve that problem. Cookes Storage in Sutton Coldfield will even come and collect your goods for you – so that all you need to do is make sales and see your profits soar.
6. Once you’ve organised your stock in your unit, you’ll be able to locate individual items with ease and get everything packed and ready for shipping in no time at all – meaning you can pack and shift more in one day and meet more customer demands.

Finally, once the festive season is over you’ll be able to see at a glance what, if any, stock is left over and get it all marked down in time for the January sales before leaving your temporary business premises – until the next seasons demand begin.