Standing Orders, Direct Debits or Reoccurring Card Payments?

GM Store Nation,

After a really good start to the week with reservations (8 Monday) is turned into a slightly poor week …. 3 days in and wev’e done 13 Reservations

Check out the industry news sections guys … Some interesting stories, Safe Store results and an old Debenhams is turning in to a self storage 🙌

Yesterdays Stats …

• 3 Reservations

• 5 Move Ins

• 3 Move Outs

Lets … Do … This …

Here's what coming your way today :-)  😎 🎯

🤐 A Self Storage Tip - “Standing Orders, Direct Debits or Reoccurring Card Payments 🤷‍♂️”

🤝 3 Self Storage News Stories

🧐 Yesterday’s figures for each facility

🥸 1 Meme of the day

Self Storage Tip - 💡 💰 🤑

Standing Orders, Direct Debits or Reoccurring Card Payments 🤷‍♂️

How do we take payments?

This is something I get asked a lot!

It’s worth talking about because we have made changes over the years 

In today’s email i’m going to tell you the methods we used and why we changed 

When we first opened we took payments via (2012 - 2016) -

Standing Orders 🤔

I was told by the bank this was the best way as I wouldn’t get the approval to take Direct Debits (Customers can reclaim Direct Debits charges so the bank is acting like a guarantee for those payments)

Standing Orders worked great, BUTT one crucial problem with them!! …. 

You can’t change the amount the customers pay 🤨 …. The amount is the amount and that’s that! No price increases 🥹 

Not great for revenue management ❌

But at the time … I didn’t increase customer prices, So it wasn’t a problem. 

You don’t know what you don’t know! 

Standing Orders wasn’t the way forward.  

In 2016 we started taking payments through -

Direct Debits ♥️

DDs worked great at first … 

As long as I gave notice to my customers I could increase prices … Loverly jubilee as Del Boy would say. 

There are small problems with Direct Debits ie actioning the DD for each customer … Takes a small amount of time each day. Just a tad tedious for the team 

The one big problem we found with DDs is the delay payments take … Let me explain -

Monday we would action the DDs that are due on Wednesday (bit of a pain) 

We don’t find out until Friday if those payments have been successful or not. 

If they’re not successful we have to contact the customer on Friday and react to the payment  

The payment won’t be taken out of their bank account until Tuesday and we won’t know if it’s successful until Thursday 

LONG WINDED 🤨

It’s several days of messing around and taking valuable time … It’s all very manual! 

I thought there must be a better way … In stepped Gavin Shields (founder of Stora), he convinced me to use Stripe …. (To be honest, when he told me I didn’t agree because I didn’t want to pay any commission)

It’s a Reoccurring Card Payment 🙌

The big difference between Stripe and DD is - 

Direct Debit is pulled from a bank account while recurring card payments are charged to the credit or debit card account

Payments are taken immediately … We know there and then if a payment has been successful 

ANDDD …. The best part about Stripe … You can retake the payment whenever you want 

For example …. Stripe profile people and knows when they are most likely to have money in the account. 

WIN ✅

We have seen a massive decrease in our debtors since using Stripe 

Yes, there is added costs to pay Stripe but the efficiency is definitely worth it! ✅

So this is a long winded way of telling you we now use Reoccurring Card Payments …. We think that’s the best form of payments 

Thank You Gavin … You were right again (Ha hate admitting that 😂) …. No one tell him 😅

Industry News -  🧐

• 1 - Debenhams in Swindon to become self-storage facility

• 2 - Safestore reports moderate final quarter growth

• 3 - Green Initiatives in Self-Storage Facilities

The fun bit - My business .... Bare Butt Naked! 😲 🤫 🤭

Willerby (Hull) My big site -

• 2 Reservations

• 2 Move Ins

• 2 Move Outs

Month to Date -

• MINUS 1855 Sq Ft Up

Reservations so far this week = 6

Move Ins so far this week = 4

Clough Rd Figures .... The Automated Site

• 0 Reservations

• 3 Move Ins

• 1 Move out

Month to Date -

• 1445 Sq Ft Up!

Reservations so far this week = 2

Move Ins so far this week = 3

Beverley … My Baby (First site)

• 1 Reservation

• 0 Move Ins

• 0 Move Outs

Month to Date -

• Minus 35 Sq Ft for the month

Reservations so far this week = 1

Move Ins so far this week = 1

Wrexham's Figures (Indoor) ... My First Acquisition

• 0 Reservation

• 0 Move Ins

• 0 Move Outs

Month to Date -

• PLUS 590 Sq Ft for the month

Reservations so far this week = 3

Move Ins so far this week = 0

Mansfield Figures - My New Site

• 0 Reservation

• 0 Move Ins

• 0 Move Outs

Month to Date -

• PLUS 4025 …. WHOOOPPPPPP!

Reservations so far this week = 1

Move Ins so far this week = 1

Meme / GIF of the day - 👀 😂 

Health and Fitness ... Move More = Live Longer - 🏋️‍♀️ 🏃

Weekly goals -

• Gym - 4 times …. 20,000 steps per day

• Run - 25 k

• Boxing - 0

Results so far -

• Gym - 0

• Run - 18.3k

• Boxing - 0

Yesterday’s Steps - 19,473

Loads of self storage love,

Dean ❤️ 🙃