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.

Move over spring clean, that time has gone. Now we’re planning ahead for the long winter to come.

There’re plenty of things to do to prepare our homes for winter, not least those chores we all try to avoid, like clearing out the gutters, filling the log store and insulating the pipes.

Not all jobs are outdoors ones. We’ve spent the summer travelling, enjoying the weather, spending time with friends. And while we enjoyed plenty of time outdoors, the interior of our homes can become a little bit neglected.

Throughout the house, the clutter just seems to gather. Tupperware lids multiply, shoe piles mysteriously grow, filing is neglected, the paperwork mounts up and children’s toys seem to manifest themselves into a toy shop.

It’s time for a winter clear out.

Sort through toys

Hula hoops, buckets and spades, paddling pools, swingballs and kites – the toys children play with in the summer lie unused through the wet and windy days of winter. Some will be beyond repair, others are worth saving for another year.

Put away the summer clothes

It’s time to say goodbye to the beach dresses, fold the sarongs and dig out the thick coats and spare wellies. We’re heading into boots and hat season now.

Garden chairs and BBQs

Save furniture from discolouring or rotting in the damp winter air. While you can cover the frames, cushions and soft furnishings need to be stored somewhere dry and away from tiny teeth if you want them to last the winter.

Clear out the cupboards

Take a look at the piles growing around the home, where things have been put ‘for now’. It’s time to put stuff away – especially now you’ll be spending more time indoors looking at it.

The difficulty comes in finding places to keep all the extra items that we seem to collect. Garden sheds, if you have the room, are no place for soft furnishings, and stuffing everything in the wardrobe just makes your home feel more cluttered, not less.

So if you’re looking for extra space to pack away summer, it’s time to look at storage. Flexible contracts, as much space as you need and no more, and dry, indoor units that make sure your summer shorts are ready to wear next time you need them.

Are you ready for winter? With our free collection service (T&C’s apply) we’re on hand to make sure your season starts smoothly. Call now for more information on 0121 250 5055.

The Cookes Storage Service opening hours over the Christmas period are as follows:

• 23rd December: 9am to 5pm
• 24th December: 10am to 2pm
• 25th December: CLOSED
• 26th December: CLOSED
• 27th – 31st December: 10am to 4pm
• 1st January: CLOSED
• 2nd January: Normal Operating Hours

If you require access outside of these operating hours please give us a call on 0121 285 5197 or email info@cookesstorage.co.uk.

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.

Lifestyle Storage

If you are one of the millions in the UK living in apartments or city centres, you’ll be fully aware of how important your space is. With little or no garden and likely no garage, how can you manage all of your belongings? And let’s face it, as a population we are gathering more and more belongings in every generation. Lifestyle Storage can make your life easier.

If you are a family that loves the outdoors, just where do you keep all of your extra equipment? A 2-parent, 2-child family means 4 bikes. Keen campers require tents, sleeping bags, gas cookers and canisters, cooking utensils, chairs, camping beds . . . the list goes on.

Then there’s the sports gear – hockey sticks, tennis rackets, footballs – or for the more serious outdoor enthusiasts – canoes, surfboards, climbing gear and so on.

That’s where offsite lifestyle storage options really do make all the difference. With your own personal storage unit you effectively have your very own garden shed – but with many added benefits.

Damp and rodent free storage

There’s nothing worse than arriving on your campsite after a fraught 4 hours in the car with shrieking children, traffic jams, diversions and torrential rain, than putting up your family tent and discovering it’s covered in mildew. Or worse – full of tiny but well-chewed holes from the resident family of mice.

With an indoor self-storage space like Cookes Storage in the West Midlands, you know that your precious canvas is protected from rain and wildlife – at least until your next camping trip.

Mess free solutions

If you do live in an apartment, then the last thing you want is to be bringing the great outdoors back into your home. So, if you are a keen mountain biker, after a full day shooting through muddy ravines and down dirt tracks, it’s far better to take that bike back to your lifestyle storage unit than to trek it into your hallway.

Especially if, as any biking enthusiast knows, your collection of bikes expands to provide options for every terrain.

Wet canoes, wetsuits, muddy waders or fishy jackets – keep the mess and smells of your outdoor hobbies away from the inside of your home.

Out of sight – until you need it

Many of our extra curricula activities are seasonal, and that means that the gear we need spends a good portion of the year taking up precious space. The great thing about your storage unit is the flexibility it gives you to prioritise your belongings, so you don’t have to choose between sports.

Take out your skis for the winter, bring home the sled, and get all the tobogganing in you can for the few days a year that we have snow. And don’t forget your hockey sticks and rugby balls.

Once the seasons change, you can deposit all your winter gear back into your lifestyle storage room – and get out the tennis racket and surfboard, ready for the summer sports season.

Live without limits

Your home space may be limited, but your lifestyle doesn’t have to be. The great thing about storage is that it gives you space to expand your horizons and enjoy all of the sports you love, without compromising on your equipment.

For more information on the self storage services offered by Cookes Storage please call 0121 250 5055 or Get a Quote.