What the 2023 Cushman & Wakefield SSA Industry Report Revealed About Self-Storage Customers

What the 2023 Cushman & Wakefield SSA Industry Report Revealed About Self-Storage Customers

Customer insight data can tell you much about industry and business performance. This is as true of the self-storage sector as it is of any sector you can think of. After all, customers can shape the perception and opinion of your business, and, by extension, the industry.

The Cushman & Wakefield & SSA industry report features rich customer data taken from a total of 1,827 responses from more than 80 self-storage stores across the UK. The data disclosed is as dense as it is enlightening.

Understanding this data and how it can be applied can be very helpful for self-storage businesses, large and small, allowing them to make better decisions and offer a level of service that meets customer needs.

Interesting to learn more about what the Cushman & Wakefield SSA Industry Report uncovered about customers? Keep reading below.

Customer profile

Okay, first things first. Customer profile. The typical self-storage customer is evenly split between males and females. With the majority being male. 55.5%, in fact. This has remained consistent for the last seven years. It’s likely that unit usage is split between a male and female partner.

Data also shows that the number of people using storage over the age of 55 is increasing. This could indicate two things:

1) Millennials are less likely to use storage as they hit their 40s compared to the previous generation. 2) Long-term storage customers are getting older and staying longer, therefore making up a larger proportion of customers.

Younger people use their units for shorter periods of time, which results in greater churn rates. Customers under 45 are more likely to be short-term, with 59% leasing a unit for less than 12 months compared to 39% of customers over 45.

Self-storage customers tend to have access to more disposable income. 55% earn more than the national minimum wage. Higher-wage earners tend to fall within the self-storage catchment age group because they tend to have more goods to store, goods that have been accumulated over a longer period of time. Additionally, more self-storage customers are homeowners than renters, representing a larger group than the national average.

Reasons for using self-storage

The Cushman & Wakefield SSA Industry Report uncovered that people use self-storage for a range of reasons. This indicates the diverse strength of the sector.

Common reasons range from a change in circumstances, such as death in the family or divorce or moving home or business premises. Such reasons are unaffected by economic or political conditions. The residential market contributes to the largest number of customers, at 36%. That said, decluttering was down from 4% to 2% in the last 12 months, likely because of the recent housing market slowdown.

Reasons for personal self-storage

Interest rate increases and inflationary pressure have both affected the self-storage sector. People have less disposable income. 17% of respondents have said that this has affected their self-storage needs.

However, 58% of respondents noted that the current economic circumstances have benefited their businesses. Why? Customers are using their services more frequently and requiring more storage square footage.

Reasons for business self-storage

The remaining 19% of self-storage business customers are distributed across a diverse range of sectors.

The Cushman & Wakefield SSA Industry Report found that most business customers are small businesses, with a whopping 83% having less than 10 employees. However, what’s clear is that self-storage caters to a range of different businesses.

Unsurprisingly, the data reveals that retail customers continue to be the most common business customers, at 19%. However, this figure has been steadily declining, peaking at 23% during the pandemic.

Professional service storage has been steadily increasing over the past 3 years. Not-for-profit and charity customers have dropped from 11% in 2021 to 6% in 2022. This may be due to several reasons. From heavily discounted units leased to charities to peak occupancy in stores, there is certainly a downward trend for professional services self-storage.

However, let’s not forget that professional services are just one sector. The self-storage industry is still outperforming many other sectors in today’s challenging economic and commercial landscape, and therefore it is very valuable to local and regional economies.

In fact, self-storage facilities provide essential support to local businesses. Oftentimes, businesses simply cannot operate without self-storage. Essentially, this means that self-storage “incubates” businesses. 20% of businesses operate completely from their self-storage unit. Better still, self-storage units are essential in a challenging climate, allowing home and small businesses to scale operations in a flexible and cost-effective way.

Unit size

89% of customers rent a single unit. 9% rent two units. 2% rent three or more. This gives you some idea of the scope of self-storage customer needs. However, these percentages do not tell the whole story.

Most self-storage facilities, including EASS, provide customers with a choice of unit sizes. Businesses are more likely to require more than one unit, often scaling storage requirements by leasing more space as they scale operations. Additionally, scaling self-storage space also allows businesses to save on warehouse space, which can be much more costly than self-storage.

Rental length

According to the Cushman & Wakefield SSA Industry Report, 65% of customers have occupied their unit for around two years. 43% for less than a year. Business users are more likely to have occupied their unit(s) for longer than domestic customers. They also tend to need longer-term storage solutions.

A deeper analysis of rental length shows that older people are more likely to be long-term customers. When the data is segmented into over and under 45 years old, 59% of younger renters have had their unit for less than a year, compared to 39% of people over 45 years old. This demonstrates that younger people view self-storage as a short-term solution, but they may use the service as and when they need it. Conversely, people over the age of 45 require longer-term storage.

The data for expected rental length sheds further light on customer behaviour. 11% of customers plan to use self-storage for 12–24 months. 23% of customers intend to use self-storage for more than three years. The majority of customers will believe that their self-storage needs should be for 3 months. However, most customers think that they’ll need self-storage for three months. Of course, perception is different from reality. Oftentimes, needs evolve, and therefore, so does storage length.

Interestingly, a larger than you may think number of customers are unsure if self-storage is good value for money, despite immediate or forecasted needs. But they have no plans to cease using the service. This could mean that the self-storage need may shrink in the future, should a comparable service arise. However, what this does mean is that self-storage is necessary and essential for people in a range of personal and professional circumstances.

What does the data mean for self-storage businesses?

Basically, the data revealed by the report is paramount for self-storage businesses, like EASS, to continue to provide a valued service to both commercial and residential customers.

But there’s more. Analysing trends, such as the reduced need for self-storage within the professional services sector, allows decision-makers to consider pivoting their service offerings away from this sector and towards, for example, retail self-storage, which has a strong market and will likely continue to blossom in the future, especially considering the number of businesses that have migrated online in the wake of COVID-19.

In the end, only by absorbing and understanding the customer data uncovered in the report can self-storage businesses know how to plan, provide, and pivot their services to maximise revenue.

Have you any self-storage needs? If so, get in touch with EASS self-storage today.

Sources:

https://www.cushmanwakefield.com/en/united-kingdom/insights/uk-self-storage-annual-report