The UK eCommerce industry is growing at a dramatic rate. Along with the decline in high-streets up and down the country, eCommerce businesses have had to adapt and evolve their model in order to survive, and stay relevant.
However, the majority of eCommerce business start-ups fail within the first few months of launching. Mainly due to large costs and a lack of planning.
Inventory management is a big part of eCommerce businesses. You don’t want to be letting your valuable customers down when they place an order online, only for you to find out you haven’t kept an eye on your stock levels!
Self storage units are an ideal storage solution for eCommerce businesses to help stay on top of their stock, and help expand and grow their online businesses, without the burden of expensive office or warehouse costs.
Ideal For Storing Stock
Selling products of high value? You’ll want somewhere safe and secure to keep your eCommerce stock. Any damage or theft could have a detrimental knock-on effect on your business, which no one wants.
At RedSpot, we have a number of security measures set up and in place to keep your eCommerce business stock safe 24/7. With CCTV, lighting, fencing and PIN coded gates in place, you can have peace of mind your business stock is in safe hands.
Somewhere To Keep Your Packaging, and Rubbish
Ecommerce businesses can churn out a fair chunk of rubbish over a period of time. If you are selling products that are fragile, you’ll likely be needing them to be well wrapped in packaging. This could result in a lot of waste.
Storing all of your packaging at home or in your office could take up valuable space that could be put to better use. Renting a self storage unit could free up some room for you to process orders.
Remember to try and recycle as much of the excess packaging as possible. You want to make sure you are doing your bit to save the planet.
An Ideal Workspace For Packing Orders
Packing orders ready for distribution and shipping is one of the most important aspects when running your own eCommerce business. It’s likely you’ll have a large arsenal of packaging supplies, including cardboard boxes, plastic mailer bags, gift wrapping, protective materials like bubble wrap and newspaper, labels and so on.
Packing up orders can be a fairly laborious, and intense process, especially if you are a one man band. Have you considered renting a self storage unit to use as a place to pack all of your orders? You could set yourself up a large workstation, and put some shelves in so you can have all your packaging easily accessible. As well, when you are ready to ship all of your orders to your customers, you can drive right up to your unit, making loading the delivery van nice and easy!
A Great Stepping Stone
Lots of small businesses start in the spare bedroom or your living room. However, over time, assuming your business is moving in the right direction, demand will be increasing.
Increasing demand means you will have to increase supply levels of your stock. Sooner or later, your living room won’t be big enough to keep all your stock, so you’ll have to find some alternatives.
Upgrading to an office or a small warehouse might be one step too far, and you may not quite have the budget for that. So what’s the next best option?
A safe and secure self storage unit could be the perfect stepping stone for you eCommerce business. All your stock will be kept safe and secure, and you will be able to get your living room back to being a living room.
Somewhere To Create Some Marketing Collateral
Marketing is a crucial part of any eCommerce business. Everyone needs images and videos to help with promotion. So where are you going to capture all these images.
You could use your storage unit as a photo studio. Set up a screen and a layout to snap pictures and videos of all your products. It could give you a proper professional look, rather than having your living room as the backdrop!
Great Storage For All Your Seasonal Stock
Does your business sell stock that is particularly relevant at a specific time of the year? For example, Christmas gifts, summer furniture, Halloween decorations?
If you do, you can expect there to be certain peaks and troughs in your sales throughout different times of the year. At certain times, you will sell a lot of products in a short space of time. How are you going to cope with the massive influx of orders?
Having easy and direct access to a self storage unit space will come in handy for order replenishment of your stock when you are offering promotions with discounts and price cuts. And once the promotion has run its race, you’ll be able to keep the unsold stock safe and secure until the next seasonal campaign comes around.
As you can see, a self storage unit can help your eCommerce business in a variety of different ways.
Think you’re ready for storage? View our self storage units here>>
