Self Storage in South Africa

There are over 200 self storage facilities in South Africa and the industry is growing steadily. Ownership is very fragmented with many facilities set up by enterprising individuals, and especially by farmers with land on the outskirts of towns and cities.

The largest operators own a few stores but the branding of the bigger operators is still quite weak and there is no single dominant operator.

Historically the storage business in South Africa started with garage developments that lacked proper reception areas, which might be termed first or second-generation developments, but purpose-built facilities are now being built. The boom years for the industry were 2005 to 2008 when the growth rate was about 40%, but this has since dropped significantly.

There are concentrations of self storage facilities in the larger cities of Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and Pretoria.

Phoning for storage space rather than emailing

The Self Storage Association of South Africa was set up by Dylan Wolpe following his experience of seeing the US industry and how it benefits from industry cooperation. He runs Storage Genie, and you can get a feel for the sort of stores the company operates from the photos of different stores on storagegenie.co.za. These are a mix of single storey garage-type units, converted buildings and purpose-built facilities.

Interestingly they concentrate on encouraging phone use and their website front page encourages visitors to “give our friendly call centre a tinkle”. Their URL automatically redirects to this address: www.0861200010.co.za, which is their phone number.

How does South African self storage compare?

With self storage historically based around blocks of single-storey buildings, it is perhaps unsurprising that the average size of a South African facility is only about 300 units; but compared to self storage solutions in other countries, the individual units are quite large, averaging about 180 square feet.

Typically occupancy is said to be well over 80%, with some sites working on 100% occupancy. South Africans (as do Americans) sometimes use the term “mini storage” to refer to self storage.

About three quarters of South African self storage sites are single level and only about a tenth of operators sell associated products such as packaging material. This low-build approach has encouraged some people to offer prefabricated solutions, and with precast building systems large developments can be put up in less than six months.

Prominent figures in the industry, such as Gavin Lucas and Dylan Wolpe, suggest that self storage in South Africa has a lot more potential. Lucas points out that, with an average of 13 square feet of existing space for each South African, the country has much less self storage space per person than the UK, which in turn has less than half as much storage space per person as Australasia. The US has over 40 times as much self storage per person as South Africa.

Growing storage needs

Motivations for using self storage are always varied, but South Africa has some distinctive drivers for its storage industry. There are a large number of middle-class people who work and live overseas who want to keep their links with the country, and by keeping their things in storage they keep open the possibility of moving back.

Gated communities with smaller dwellings also encourage the use of storage, as does the steady urbanisation of the country. Other motivations include the usual major life events: couples getting together and finding they have too much stuff, couples divorcing, clearing space for building works, and relatives dying leaving furniture and other belongings.

In the large cities such as Cape Town, there are larger operators such as Stor-age self storage which has three stores in the city, including a just-opened purpose built facility right in the centre of Cape Town. This offers 7,000 square metres of usable storage space, with an average size of unit of about 110 square feet. This facility is architect-designed and has a swish reception area selling packaging materials, and it is hard to distinguish from the most modern European self storage centres. It has been built in cooperation with outside investors, and stor-age.co.za is about to open a new facility on a similar basis in Bloemfontein.

One Response to “Self Storage in South Africa”

1. Gill Celliers says:

   February 19, 2012 at 10:40 am

   A great and encouraging artical, my husband and I have been thinking about a storage business for years and at this point of our lives think it time stop the talking and to start the doing!!. Any additional advise would be well appreciated.
   Thanks,