Tim Calder

The Wellington Small Business Expo was a great place to see all New Zealand’s newly established small businesses. I enjoyed some of the new web businesses that featured at this event like TooMuchPaper, KiwiSelect, and EZYPAY. I was also very surprised how helpful many of the featuring businesses were and how many of them were able to help with developing better systems at EZY STOR Self Storage. EZYPAY was one of those businesses that tapped us on the shoulder and explained how they could improve our cash flow at EZY STOR Self Storage by setting us up with Direct Debit forms as apposed to the Automatic Payment forms that we currently require our customers to setup when a storage agreement is completed. If successful this would mean that we would be able to directly debit our customers bank accounts with our storage fee on the correct day’s that payments are supposed to come out. While in Wellington I took some time out to have a look around this beautiful city, second only to Dunedin

Dunedin’s Self Storage industry took a blow this week as a Mosgiel storage company was reported by the Otago Daily Times to have had $30,000 worth of customers goods stolen over the past eight months. This incident highlights the need for industry wide strict security requirements to be met. EZY STOR Self Storage has the latest security system provided by Aotea Security which is the company responsible for the high level security system at Milton prison. All of our units and garages are individually alarmed and monitored by Alert Monitoring which are also responsible for the monitoring of Dunedin City Council and Delta Properties and Buildings. Currently EZY STOR Self Storage have never had an incidence of theft which is a record that we are immensely proud of and aim to keep.

It is surprising how many different uses people can find for our EZY STOR Self Storage garages. Although we only promote the uses of storing furniture and household goods (as these are the most conventional) people have found many more. As all garages contain power points and lights this has attracted Bands which use the garages for practice rooms where they can make as much noise as they like without bothering anyone. We also have several Small Businesses that use the garages for minor assembly and distribution of their products as our storage facilities are all located in central, convenient locations. There has also been one case where someone decided that they would LIVE in one of our garages! This only lasted a couple of days until our security system noticed irregularities with entry and exit times. Sadly this person was asked to leave. I have just recently shifted all my sports and recreational equipment into one of our 3×3’s at EZY STOR St Albans. All of my toys are now kept safe & secure and dust free while still being accessible 24/7 which is excellent for a late night trip to the driving range

EZY-STOR Self Storage’s new facility at St. Albans Street, Kaikorai Valley has met the growing demand for Storage in Dunedin. Within two weeks the new facility has gained an occupancy rate of 20% which is set to reach its target of 90% by mid May. EZY-STOR Self Storage’s point of difference from other Dunedin storage companies is that customers can enjoy 24/7 drive-up access to their belongings, which means no traipsing down long corridors. Our customers also have the use of individual power points and lights which come with all garages.

EZY-STOR Self Storage has today just opened its fourth storage facility in Dunedin. The new facility in St. Albans Street, Kaikorai Valley has 58 garages 29 - 3×3’s and 29 - 6×3’s. The demand for storage in Dunedin continues to grow as new facilities quickly fill requiring another to be built. We are currently working on our 5th mega facility now which could double our size and provide EZY-STOR Self Storage with a range of smaller size units located in the center of town.

Christchurch will be hosting the South Island Regional SSAA meeting on the 8th. I think these are great events to listen to speakers from within the storage industry share updates and advice on new policies and procedures. This meeting will be held over dinner at the Holiday Inn City Centre, Cnr. Cashel & High Street from 6:30pm onwards.