Full-Service storage is a form of warehousing in which all steps for storing items, from pickup to secure storage and return delivery, are handled by a professional Selfstorage company.
The goal of service providers, such as BOXIE24, is not only to save customers time and inconvenience, but also to give those a self storage option outside the home who do not have a vehicle available.
In doing so, Full-Service-Storage is generally not more expensive than other Selfstorage options, even though transport and carrying of the containers to be stored is ensured by a professional team.
What is Full-Service-Storage and when might it currently be relevant for you?
With conventional Self-Storage, you are responsible for all steps yourself. You pack, organise, carry, transport, and finally store everything yourself. For that, you often have to take entire days off to get everything done. Added to this are further obligations such as insurance and sufficient packaging material.
In most cases, you are already in a stressful situation when you look for a Selfstorage solution, whether it is a move, a fundamental family change, or a business restructuring. Organising a Selfstorage warehousing solution can further worsen an already tense situation.
The Full-Service service is intended to give you some peace in these stressed life situations so that you can concentrate on what is most important. Selfstorage companies therefore even provide you with the storage boxes and check your insurance cover.
In doing so, understanding and trained team members pick up your furniture and other items from your own four walls as needed to transport them safely and well guarded for storage. This gives you greater flexibility in your everyday life. At the same time, you keep access to your belongings at all times because you can get them back at any time in the same convenient way.
Which advantages does Full-Service-Storage offer compared to conventional Self-Storage?
In a way, a Full-Service provider is a moving company combined with a storage facility, without the extra costs that renting two service providers entails.
If you choose this type of storage, several unpleasant work tasks that normally arise with conventional Selfstorage disappear in comparison:
- You do not have to book a delivery van or even a lorry to pick up your things.
- You save not only time and rental van costs, but also further transport costs such as fuel.
- You receive suitable storage boxes to transport your items safely and store them over a longer period.
- The annoying carrying and manoeuvring through corridors and door openings is handled by team members specially trained for this purpose.
In contrast to Selfstorage, with Full-Service-Storage in most cases you do not have immediate or arbitrary access to your inventory if you quickly need something. Partial or complete return delivery will, however, in most cases take place within 24 hours.
When is temporary Full-Service-Storage sensible?
Full-Service-Storage is intended to provide a quick and efficient solution to relieve problems that have arisen in particularly stressful moments in life. Possible situations in which Full-Service storage could be appropriate include:
- Moves
- Renovations in which the dirt and dust that arise could damage your household goods
- Inheritances that include larger pieces of furniture for which you temporarily have no space and that you have to store elsewhere
- Semester holidays
- Temporary commercial space provision
In all these cases, Full-Service-Storage offers a convenient option to rent additional space outside the home with the least possible effort. All that is required of you is a booking that includes the exact date, the assumed period for your storage, and the expected return delivery.
How does Full-Service-Storage work step by step?
Once you have decided on a Full-Service option for warehousing, the booking process resembles that of a Selfstorage reservation.
- Enquiry
Send your chosen Full-Service provider an email or call. It is important that you specify your location and the period for which you need storage. When making contact, you should also have a certain overview of how much storage space you will need. - Preparing the offer
Based on your information, the Full-Service provider will prepare an offer for you. Read it very carefully to ensure that nothing can go wrong on the day of pickup. After you have reviewed and accepted the offer, the contract is signed and the first billing takes place. - Appointment
Confirm the date and time for your pickup and the volume of the goods that must be transported and stored. If this changes, do not forget to inform the Full-Service lessor. You should also photograph and document your things before the appointment in order to always keep an overview of what you are storing. - Pickup and packing
To be prepared on the day of pickup, you should already think about packing. Full-Service storage facilities usually also offer suitable moving boxes that provide a smooth process and a safe transport and storage solution. The carriers will treat your things respectfully and gently, but you should ensure yourself that everything is securely and appropriately packed and covered. The length of the pickup process depends not only on how many things you want to store, but also on how well you are prepared for it. - Transport
When the big day of pickup has finally arrived, all your things are carried out of your house by professional and friendly employees and loaded onto vehicles set up specifically for the move. Your household goods and inventory are driven to the storage space you booked without detours and without reloading. - Secure storage
At the storage facility, your belongings are unloaded again with the same professionalism as during pickup and stored securely. Full-Service lessors offer clean and dry storage areas where your things are protected from dust and moisture. - Return delivery on demand
After your things have been safely delivered and stored, you will probably also want to ensure that you receive them back. This can be agreed in two ways. On the one hand, you can already agree the complete return with the Full-Service provider when concluding the contract. On the other hand, you can book a partial or complete return delivery on demand at any time via the lessor’s online portal or by telephone. As a rule, this takes place within 24 hours after booking.
How much storage space do you need for your household?
Even before you contact a Full-Service provider or Selfstorage lessor, you have probably already gained a certain overview of what you need storage space for. However, especially with a larger number of items and pieces of furniture, it can be difficult to determine how much space you need to book.
Many Selfstorage lessors offer detailed storage unit calculators with the help of which you can determine the required storage area. To obtain an approximate first estimate, you can use the following size calculations:
- Calculation by living area
As a rule, you should calculate between 10 and 15 percent of the living area as storage space. That means, with a total area of 80 m², the required storage area is between 8 m² and 12 m², depending on how many pieces of furniture and items you store in your household. The same calculation also applies to individual rooms. A 10 m² room, excluding the kitchen, usually requires a storage area of 1 m². - Calculation by boxes
If you have already packed your things, you are probably facing a large number of boxes. As a rule, about 20 boxes, depending on their size, fit on a storage area of about 1 m². Boxes can help to combine larger quantities of smaller items such as sports equipment, general household goods, or books in one unit, which speeds up determining the storage size. However, boxes are not always suitable for storage over a longer period, and you should perhaps consider proper plastic to protect your household goods from moisture and dust. - Calculation by actual dimensions
In addition to the calculations above, you can of course also measure your inventory such as wardrobes, garden furniture, or beds as well as your household goods and add up the results to calculate the size of the required storage space. However, make sure that you can stack not only on the floor area but also upwards in order to use the rented storage space as well as possible. - Calculation with a storage unit calculator
A good online storage unit calculator offers the best possibility to determine the required storage space as accurately as possible. Various common items and pieces of furniture are listed there that you only have to tick. The storage unit calculator adds these and their space requirement and, after completion of the list, determines a final space requirement in m². - Ask your Selfstorage provider for help
If you are still not able to form a picture of your storage needs, ask your Full-Service or Selfstorage provider. If needed, provide photographic evidence or list your items. A professional Selfstorage provider will quickly be willing to assist you in calculating the required storage area.
How much does the whole Full-Service service cost?
How much you have to pay for Full-Service storage naturally depends on how much you want to store, for how long, and where. As a rule, the price is made up of the following factors:
- Location of the Full-Service storage facility
- Size of the storage space
- Length of the rental period
- Which services you use and how often
Location of the Full-Service storage facility
Living space in Germany is becoming increasingly scarce, especially in major cities such as Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, or Frankfurt. Precisely there, households and businesses are increasingly turning to Selfstorage options. With increased demand, the location naturally becomes more expensive, and therefore the rents for Full-Service storage in major cities are higher than in smaller towns and municipalities.
Size of the storage space
A box of 1 m² costs between € 4 and € 12 per week, depending on your location. In doing so, you should take into account that you have to commit to a minimum period of one to two months. In addition, for example in the case of a move, you have to reckon with storing bulky pieces of furniture that cannot be stacked on top of each other and therefore require more space, which naturally increases the costs.
Length of the rental period
The rental price of your Full-Service storage unit can be significantly reduced if you conclude a rental contract over a longer period. A Full-Service storage space of 1 m² in Berlin costs, for example, about € 40 for four weeks. With a rental of 3 months, you already receive the first 4 weeks at half price. With a six month rental contract, the period with half price calculation increases to two months, with an annual contract to four months at half rent. Further discounts could be possible if you pay the rent for the entire or a large part of the rental period in advance.
Which services you use and how often
While pickup and return delivery are mostly included in the Full-Service rental price, especially with rental contracts over a longer period, moving costs such as one or more partial return transports could arise. Other services that cannot be calculated as a flat rate are additional insurance, oversized or excessive volumes for transport, and in some cases also deposits.
Pay attention in your billing that all costs are shown transparently and that you receive fair treatment. This also includes clearly stated notice periods and clauses.
How secure is Full-Service storage?
Security is a particular strength of Full-Service-Storage. Full-Service storage facilities are usually well secured by CCTV and monitoring by guard teams. Since normally only authorised personnel have access to the storage areas, the possibilities for theft and vandalism are reduced considerably.
Stored items are not only protected from unauthorised access, but also from environmental influences. Full-Service storage rooms are not only well ventilated against moisture accumulation, but also heated and or air conditioned in order to protect sensitive inventory from large temperature fluctuations.
To further protect your items from damage, you should take measures yourself and either pack them in sturdy plastic moving boxes or wrap them with furniture blankets against dust.
Full-Service staff are specially trained in this area of Selfstorage and will handle your property carefully, professionally, and reliably and protect it from breakage. Complaints and insurance claims in this area are low and rather rare.
You should nevertheless create photographic evidence before you have your things picked up and stored.
Safety, insurance and clear conditions explained simply and clearly
If you already entrust all your belongings completely to the custody of others, you will probably also want to ensure that they are not only well stored, but also insured.
With Full-Service-Storage, you usually receive basic insurance that covers your things already during transport. In addition, you should ensure that your household contents insurance covers the value of your property when stored outside the home.
Note, however, that your insurance, both basic and household contents, becomes void without cover if you store prohibited or dangerous goods with your property. Prohibited goods include:
- Illegal items and substances, including weapons and drugs
- Highly flammable material such as fuel, oil, lubricants, varnish and paints
- Food
- Animals
- Valuable items such as jewellery or antiques
For protection and as evidence, you should photograph your items in order to prove their value and to be able to assert a later insurance claim more quickly.
Therefore, pay particular attention in your contract to clauses that have to do with the security and safeguarding of your property. In addition, you should inform yourself with your Full-Service provider about who, besides you, has access to the storage units.
Make sure that the contract is written in clearly understandable German with clear conditions and does not contain small print about, for example, automatic extensions, hidden costs, or excessively long notice periods that could cause you problems at a later point in time.
Where in Germany can you find Full-Service storage or mobile storage
So far, there are 27 locations for Full-Service storage areas in Germany, including in the most important metropolitan areas of Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Hanover, and Stuttgart. In addition, the carriers pick up from a network of more than 90 further locations in German regions in order to bring the items to a secure warehouse.
An appointment for Full-Service storage can often be booked a few days, but at least 24 hours, in advance. The period depends on supply and demand at your location and on the size of the goods that are to be picked up and stored.
Mobile storage: an alternative to Full-Service-Storage
Sometimes it is not the big things such as furniture or other inventory that steal your space, but all the small things and the paperwork that has accumulated over the years. Perhaps you think that the little bit is probably not worth the work and the price for Selfstorage.
Here too, Full-Service storage has found a solution. You simply rent only a box that you fill with all the superfluous items or papers. With intelligent packing, you will see that you can fit a lot into a box of 60 cm x 40 cm x 37 cm (capacity of 67 litres). Afterwards, you ask a Full-Service provider such as BOXIE24 to pick up the box and store it for you.
Your home will immediately look tidier and you will gain new space in your living area, while your rented mobile box is brought outside the home cheaply and securely. In doing so, you always pay only for the space that the container takes up.
The advantage of this type of Selfstorage is not only the difference that the box makes for your living area, but also the speed with which this difference can happen. As a rule, renting a storage box can be organised in less than 24 hours and costs far less than storage in a Selfstorage unit.
If you want access to your box again, this can also be arranged within 24 hours.
Contact BOXIE24 if you want to have more space in your flat/your house already tomorrow and at the same time want a secure storage place for your belongings.
