In this issue:
- Chairman’s Report
- Annual Industry Report
- This year’s Annual Industry Report shows that over the past 12 months the industry has grown in the key areas of supply, occupancy and returns. Some key findings from the report
- Business rates
- Business rates represent a significant cost to all self storage operators and in this article the background to this tax is explained, as well as how to mitigate the amount charged.
- Dartmouth Self Storage starts development on new facility
- Dartmouth Self Storage first opened in January 2015 with just 50 units. Fast forward 3 years and a few phases later, the last being in November, and Dartmouth Self Storage now has 24,000 sqft of space.
- Managing Bad Debtors
- The self storage industry has a relatively low level of bad debtors, with most businesses having less than 1% of bad debt. However, the lien process for dealing with non-payers can often be time consuming and complicated.
- Who has the right to access a customer’s space?
- You lock it and you keep the key’ is a fundamental pillar of self storage and the legal contract that underpins it. The customer has sole access to the space, but in some cases other parties require access. So when is this allowed and how do you facilitate it?
- Changes to Facebook
- On 11th January 2018, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook would be changing its News Feed algorithm to prioritise content from “friends, family and groups.
- Staff Access Codes – are they safe?
- Access codes, or pin codes, are used in many stores to allow customers access outside office hours, or to increase security on the site in general to ensure only customers access the self storage area, but do they really increase security, or can they put security at risk?
- SSA UK
- New members
- Calendar of events
- J & R Self Storage open their new store in Chesterfield!
- On the 20th April, J & R Self Storage held a launch for the opening of their new Chesterfield store; the second in the J & R portfolio.
- Online Marketing
- With the ever increasing costs of Google AdWords and other online advertising media, many self storage operators are focussing more of their marketing efforts back onto their website and organic search listings.
- Focus on... Paul Fox from Fox Storage
- A Busy Few Months!
- The Self Storage Association has had a busy couple of months, seeing members at our events in St Anton, Birmingham, and Chester! We take a look at a couple of the highlights
- Young Leaders Group
- Further to our previous articles the YLG has continued to discuss various aspects of the industry through our social networks and, more importantly, helped each other with questions ranging from assistance with SEO, customers’ queries to local marketing. The later gave us an idea!!
- Benefits of using the SSA UK logo
- In this issue of Focus we are looking at another of the benefits of membership – the SSA UK logo.