As with many new ideas that originate in the USA, self-storage was exported to the UK around 10 years later and so it was with self-storage. During the early 1980’s, a few low grade facilities started to appear in and around London in poor quality buildings, mainly situated at the rear of industrial estates. Some stores appeared on main roads following the property crash on the early 1990’s but these were opportunity led and few and far between.

All those companies that start with the letter A

The early UK self-storage operators mainly had names that began with A, such as ABC, Acorn, Abacus, A1, Apex and Aardvaark as they competed to be at the top of the self-storage section in the Yellow Pages which was the primary means of marketing self-storage throughout the 1980’s and into the 1990’s.

The new wave for a new millennium

The UK self-storage world changed in 1998 when Shurgard Self-Storage arrived from the USA and the Big Yellow Self-Storage Company was formed in the UK. Both focused on the Greater London area initially. This new wave of development brought modern, multi storey self-storage buildings with 24 hour access pin codes and a sense of customer service.

Other new names appeared such as Safestore and Access self-storage but these substantially started out as a consolidation of existing 1st generation stores; for instance, Acorn and Abacus were knocked together to form Access and Safestore acquired Aardvaark, Spaces and other smaller companies.

Both Shurgard and Big Yellow built their business cases around the visibility of the building to generate enquiries and the prospect for enquiries from Yellow Pages. As we all now all know, the growth of the internet has been phenomenal over the past 10 years and is now largely replacing Yellow Pages.

The coming of ReadySteady Store

Ready Steady Store was formed in 2005. The business model was to take the type of building that Shurgard and Big Yellow were building in London and the Home Counties and take the concept to the provinces.

At Ready Steady Store, we had the benefit of lessons learnt by Shurgard and Big Yellow in their roll out programmes over a 10 year period. As was clear from the early American experience, the possibility of  “cut off” by a competitor from the target market remains a serious potential threat. In the first wave of development we therefore sought to find sites that were high profile, as close as possible to the target markets and ideally, in solo trading locations, thereby reducing the chances of being “cut off”.

The first hurdle for these self-storage pioneers was to find a building in which to carry through their ideas. Affordability of buildings was a significant first hurdle to overcome. The conundrum was that a self-storage entrepreneur without funds could not easily raise the finance to buy a building and fit it out. The alternative was to persuade an owner to grant a lease but again, this was not easy because the entrepreneur himself represented a significant risk; he had no money, no track record, sceptical potential investors because the idea hadn’t been tested and last, but not least, wary banks incredulous that any one person might want to rent a room in a large shed when garages, sheds or basements represented credible and cheaper short term solutions.

Well, the pioneers persisted. Some owners of large old multi-storey buildings and which were poorly located, sited or configured were beginning to face up to the fact that their buildings were beginning to represent a problem. The new technology industries wanted smart new buildings in park environments whereas these buildings were poorly sited and were decaying so potential repair costs represented a ticking time bomb. Alternative uses in a hostile urban environment were out of the question. The possibility of a deal with a self-storage operator therefore represented a new solution to an old problem.

1st generation stores

The typical 1st generation self-storage in the USA was therefore commonly to be found in an area of urban decay, in a cheap, decaying building located in an intimidating environment, often with a leaking roof and nowhere near a potential customer’s home or place of work, and hard to find. And yet, the customers started to come. The newly divorced and recently bereaved who needed time before clearing stuff out, the house mover; in fact, anybody trying to manage its space requirements.

The 1980’s – better quality and more convenient stores

It did not take long for the ever resourceful American entrepreneur to realise that, if the building could be sited closer to the potential customer in a less intimidating environment, there was a strong likelihood that the potential customer would not travel to find a solution. It was clear that the increasingly affluent, American consumer was interested in convenience and was willing to pay for it.

In this way, the 2nd generation stores in refurbished, better quality buildings in less hostile environments started to appear especially as funding became easier during the 1980’s.

Over time, the increasingly sophisticated consumer sought new purpose built storage centres and the size of the investment demanded better quality, high visibility locations which are the 3rd generation buildings.