Survey: What Our Customers Store and Why
If you have ever wondered what lies within the vaults of a self storage facility, then you are in for a real treat. Safestore have conducted a survey into what their customers store and why. They have found that moving home is the reason that 44.6% of 1450 participants use self storage.
Of course, this wasn’t the only reason why, and the second largest group of people (16.05%) of people also said that they were storing to “create more space at home”. A figure which isn’t surprising considering the spike in property prices of late both in the rented and buying sectors.
As well as this, the survey also showed that
business storage was also incredibly popular, with 6.69% of those surveyed stating that they were “storing stock for my business”. Rounding up the top reasons, almost 5% of participants (4.99%) of people said that they were storing because they were doing DIY/renovations at their home.
The survey also revealed that two of the people surveyed store because they don’t want others to know that they have certain possessions!
The results noted that books (65.21%), clothes (57.13%) and CD/DVDS/videos (46.03%) were amongst the top items stored by participants, with just 20.1% storing sports equipment and 13.49 % storing musical instruments.
Dave Cox, Head of Sales and Marketing at Safestore, said, “
This clearly shows that most of the people storing with us are moving home, which explains why there is a large proportion of people storing furniture and household items.”
“
The second most common reason to store, to create more space at home, looks like it is a trend that might continue as people refrain from moving or buying their first home because prices are high. As families grow it’s important to make room for them, which means that the book or DVD collection is put into storage for a while. Instead, they start to make improvements to their own homes, which is why a percentage are storing due to DIY and renovations.”
According to the Bank of England, £15.4 billion was shaved off mortgage debt during April through to June, which suggests that many homeowners are choosing to improve their homes with extensions rather than moving into bigger properties. For many, the cost of moving is simply too high, with house prices increasing and the sky high cost of stamp duty. The housing shortage only compounds this. Housing charity Shelter claim that 250,000 homes need to build each year, but as of 2013 only 125,000 were actually built. This means that demand for housing is high, causing lots of people to simply stay where they are.