By Carol Smith

Ever needed a bit of extra space for your business? Maybe you should consider renting a storage unit. To many people’s surprise, there are tons of ways you can use a storage unit if you’re running a business. Storage units are highly secure, super flexible and often very cost effective — especially when comparing to what’s usually the alternative, a full office relocation.

Choosing an office space or a warehouse facility is an important decision and you need to make sure you get it right. To give you an idea of what kind of businesses you can run from cheap storage units, here are five examples to get your imagination going. Some of the businesses can be fully run from a unit, while others are using the storage space for efficient outsourcing of key parts of their supply chain.

A photography studio

If you’re a freelance photographer or videographer you probably know all too well that setting up a full living room studio to only take it all down at 3 pm when the kids come home from school is not ideal.

With a storage unit, you can have a more permanent studio and for a margin of the price you’d pay for renting an actual city centre office.

Whether you just need a place to do your editing in peace or if you need a full-blown studio — a storage unit can help enhance your productivity and reduce waste time setting up and taking down equipment.

DIY workshop

There’s only so much you can do from your garage if you’ve got a DIY business. If you’re looking for an industrial workspace, storage units can easily be converted into a fully functioning workshop.

Whether you’re looking to store tools that you’re not needing right now, carry out your work or arrange deliveries to your customers — a storage unit can be a great place to run your DIY business from. Most storage facilities offer easy and free of charge upgrades too, should you realize you need more space along the way.

Packing, labeling and shipping for larger eCommerce

There’s a whole supply chain of receiving orders, printing labels, packing and shipping that comes on top of actually making, marketing and selling products online. A storage unit is a great place to use for both storing overflow stock and managing all behind the scenes work that needs to be done too.

With a flexible storage unit provider you can usually up/downgrade your unit whenever you need, making it an ideal place to run a seasonal business from, for example. No more paying for space you don’t use half the year! You can even dedicate a corner for a photo studio making sure your product images are always super crisp and in the highest quality.

Accounting

All other businesses mentioned so far have been rooted in the creative industry, and that’s all good — but there are many more opportunities for businesses to carry out their daily operations from a less traditional base. Running an accounting firm is one of them.

It’s super easy to convert a storage unit into a fully functioning office space for a small team to work from.

Make sure you check that the storage facility you’re looking at has electricity in the units, or see if they have a dedicated workspace or office share option. Storage units, and even shared office spaces, often cost a small margin of what a traditional office would cost.

If you’re looking for additional storage for your paperwork or what have you, you can easily move this into another storage unit clearing your office completely from clutter and unnecessary paperwork flooding the floor.

Running your bespoke Etsy shop

Ever had an idea and decided to run with it only to realize your partner wasn’t overly keen on you turning the living room into a creative studio?

Good news is — there’s an easy solution! In a storage unit you can brainstorm, prototype, create and improve your bespoke and quaint creative produce whenever you want and you don’t need to clear the floor every time dinner is ready.

If you’re running a small Etsy shop and looking for a space where you can let the creative juices flow freely, you really should consider a storage unit.

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Carol Smith is a freelance writer for Storage Vault and is absolutely crazy about utilising self-storage! When not writing about productivity and self-storage she’s away exploring the Scottish highlands.