Tim Calder

This month All Stor (Christchurch), All Safe (Wellington), Ezi Stor (Palmerston North), and Ezy Stor (Dunedin) completed a combine website under the domain storage.co.nz. This joint venture has made the range of website features like storage calculators, online booking systems, and easy updated specials more affordable for smaller operations to justify. As each company offers a comparable service in different regions it has made it possible for us to work together efficiently without causing any competition issues. Eventually our operations will run closer together to allow customers to receive a similar secure service and relative storage product offerings in most major cities across the country as well as the ability to have their goods moved between locations when moving. As our local operations grow and more centers are acquired our collaboration will hopefully give us a competitive edge over our competition.

EZY STOR Self Storage has rapidly filled to a very high 87% occupancy across all of our facilities in Dunedin. This very exciting news demonstrates that even after our large expansion of 58 garages at our St Albans Street facility in Kaikorai Valley, only six months after 36 new garages were built next to the Burnside off-ramp in Green Island, that the demand for self storage in Dunedin is growing. With close to 300 garages spread across 4 locations in Dunedin EZY STOR Self Storage is the largest provider of single garages in Otago. This expansion looks to continue into 2009 with one warehouse to renovate into a 400 unit storage facility and another parcel of land to develop. By 2010 EZY STOR Self Storage will be on target to have over 1000 garages and units in the greater Otago Region.

Storer Check balances storers’ privacy with the need for secure and profitable storage facilities.

Storer Check has been established for the sole purpose of maintaining a database for the identification and collection of information about problem storers. Storers who have defaulted on their storage agreements, storers who miss payments, storers who abandon goods, storers who threaten staff and other problem storers are able to be listed with Storer Check.

We have been fortunate at EZY STOR Self Storage to date as we have had very few bad storers. Storer Check has been an initiative of the Self Storage Association of Australasia and is included in our annual membership charge. As we expand at EZY STOR Self Storage this online software will help us keep away those storers that cause nothing but trouble and allow us to focus attention on our valued customers.

EZY STOR Self Storage has reached the stage where we require dedicated storage software. Storman is professional storage software designed to improve the operations of your storage facility by keeping better track of your customers account details, tracking customers in’s and out’s, and by producing several detailed facility/business reports. We have tried the demo and have looked at other software packages on the market before we made up our minds to go ahead with the software. One aspect that held us back for a while now was the high cost of this software, it seems that all industry related companies are taking advantage of the strong growth in New Zealand self storage by charging huge amounts for relatively simple software. Where Storman have the monopoly is that most other software is largely related to the US self storage industry whereby Storman is the only prominent software in Australasia.

The one thing that I have been searching for in Self Storage Software that I haven’t found anywhere is the ability to operate it online. EZY STOR Self Storage has four facilities across Dunedin, and are constructing another site as we speak, which are all run out of the same head office located in the center of town. If we were able to access all of our facilities remotely from any location this would enable the ability to sign up customers, check accounts, and open the security gates while onsite at any facility. As internet is becoming more accessible via iPhone and other portable systems the ability to operate online is becoming more important. Unfortunately I don’t think that this feature is on the cards for the next few years as there is no real push for Storman or any other software company to provide it. Most self storage facilities are run by owner/operators which generally manager their own single facility so don’t have the problem of having to get across town to meet another customer. And of course as there is very little competition with self storage software providers there is no need to innovate to remain competitive.

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.