Denmark: Flying the flag for self storage

The Danish self storage market is growing rapidly but is still quite small relative to the demand for storage in the UK. Similarly to the market here, there are both converted old buildings and many new-builds. Many self storage companies are family-run and some started up as a result of families having spare buildings which they wanted to put to profitable use, but the more recent expansion has been driven by purpose-built facilities and multiple-site operators.

Charging for self storage by the cubic foot

Many Danish operators charge their customers by the cubic foot rather than the square foot, so high ceilings increase revenue. Many units are typically 3 metres high.  The charges are around 42 Danish Krone per cubic metre per month.

For comparison with British storage units, where self storage charges average about £20 per square foot per year, this equates to a Danish charge of about £15 per square foot per year, assuming a 3 metre high unit.  One can see that there is an incentive to build higher storage units in Denmark.

Exporting British know-how in constructing storage rooms

Some British firms have worked in Denmark building out self storage centres.  For example, Richard Allen of askactive.com sent a team from their base at Crewe in Cheshire to Denmark to do one fitting out job with partitioning, doors and fire safety measures. It was a challenge becoming familiar with  Danish building regulations (corridors must be 1.4 metres wide, for example), but the use of known techniques often makes it worth importing construction skills in this way from other parts of Europe.

Most stores in Copenhagen but self storage becoming more widespread

Two of the bigger European storage multiples are active in Denmark – City Storage and Shurgard – as well as Box-it and Dit Polterkammer (which means something like “the junk room” in Danish) and Boxbudget.  Pelican self storage also plan to open shortly in Denmark.

City Storage started in Denmark in 1998 and Shurgard opened its first Danish store at Hvidovre in 2001. Shurgard now has 8 centres in the greater Copenhagen area as well as stores in North and West Sealand.

Those self storage companies that are members of the Danish Self Storage Association are listed at this website:
http://www.danishselfstorage.dk/146-hvor_findes_der_anlaeg.htm

Advertising self storage on TV

A company called LagerHotellet (“storage Hotel”) has two newly built outlets.  They have experimented with advertising on TV but mostly such adverts are restricted to the operator’s website.

Containerised self storage

There are also some Danish containerised storage operators of which one, www.frederikssundlagerhotel.dk, is a member of the Danish Self Storage Association and, unusually for Danish operators, this company displays charges in its website.  For example a 20 ft container will cost you, including VAT, £88 per month or just over £1,000 per year.  However if you want to rent a container inside a warehouse, with heating, the price is almost twice as much.

2 Responses to “Denmark: Flying the flag for self storage”

1. plumber in glasgow says:

   February 15, 2011 at 1:33 am

   I must say i enjoyed looking through your posting. Thanks!

2. Victor says:

   March 23, 2014 at 2:22 pm

   A new player on the Danish market is http://gobox.dk operating with a business model similar to LoveSpace and Boxbee