The Internet is not high-tech, but the industry in the United States has been "making a fortune" for many years.
- 2018-04-23 14:51
- Self service storage Internet service provider on-demand storage warehouse management
Focus on frontier science and technology innovation and traditional industry upgrading
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In modern society, shopping malls, housing and high-end commercial real estate are vulnerable to economic fluctuations and demographic changes.
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However, one industry has been growing steadily, even during the Great Depression of the United States, even during the collapse / relocation, millions of layoffs and the failure of commercial real estate investment in the great depression.
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This industry is - the self-service warehousing industry.
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In the United States, more and more urban population, smaller apartments, fast rising rent, young people postponing housing and marriage are the basis for the rapid development of self-service warehousing.
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With the integration of Internet technology and traditional warehousing industry, self-service warehousing has entered a new period of development, especially in big cities.
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1. amazing numbers
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In the United States, self-service warehousing has a very large volume. According to Bloomberg data, in 2016, the value of the industry in the United States amounted to 32 billion 700 million dollars, almost three times the total box office in Hollywood.
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In addition, self-service warehousing has maintained a rapid growth momentum. Analysts at IBISWorld said that since 2012, self-service warehousing business has maintained an annual growth rate of 7.7%, and now the total number of outlets in the United States has reached 144 thousand.
In the past few years, investment in self-service warehousing has been continuously broken through. In 2017, construction investment exceeded 4 billion US dollars, reaching a record level.
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According to Investing Daily, only 2018 of the planned or built warehouses in the market will increase by 40 million square feet or about 800 facilities.
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According to SpareFoot, an American self service online storage service, the United States now has more than 50 thousand storage facilities and 2 billion 311 million square feet of rental space.
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In other words, those self-service warehouses filled with old clothes, skiing and souvenirs are more than 26 Hoover dams.
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Meanwhile, American self-service warehousing has considerable investment return and high occupancy rate. According to statistics, high end self-service warehousing is 2-3 times more expensive per square foot than commercial and residential land, and in many large cities, 90% of the storage space has been rented.
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At present, one in every 11 Americans is using self-service warehousing, with an average monthly cost of $91.14.
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2. relatively concentrated markets
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According to data from SpareFoot, although the number of self-service warehousing companies in the United States has surged, the largest six companies occupy 18% of the market, some of which have a value of billions of dollars, but 74% of the industry still belongs to small workshops.
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SpareFoot, the largest self-service warehousing service in the United States, was founded in 2008, with a total financing of $49 million 400 thousand, and was bought by private Holdings Company Cove Hill Partners in March 2018.
The company builds a docking platform for warehouses and users to provide online storage enquiry and docking services for business users and individual users, and receives commission from them.
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Clutter, a on-demand storage service company, provides one-stop services including packaging, transportation, storage, and return of goods to users.
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Users only need to place orders online, Clutter will pack and transport items within the specified time, and can also deliver door-to-door when users need it.
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The company does not have its own storage depot, but reduces the operating cost by leasing the warehouse and the free space of the factory, and sends the special person to manage the warehouse.
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In June 2016, the company completed a $64 million C round of financing, led by the British Atomico, Sequoia Capital, Google venture capital and Fifth Wall.
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3. opportunities and threats
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There is a lot of doubt about the future development of self-service warehouses. Critics believe that self-service storage space is forcing valuable buildings out of the market. The huge profits of the warehousing industry have transformed the property that can be used for commercial, industrial and even residential purposes to be a profitable warehouse.
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In New York, Miami and San Francisco, the restrictive act has been passed, which limits the establishment of self-service warehouses.
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Self Service Warehousing also faces a series of problems arising from changes in population structure and lifestyle. According to the Wall Street journal, population changes may eventually inhibit people's enthusiasm for storage.
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Compared with the older generation, young people marry and have their own property, which means that there are fewer families living in the suburbs and less spare things in the home. In addition, the poor mobility of Americans means that the demand for temporary storage is also decreasing during relocation.
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The technology that subverts an industry is most likely to come from other areas. Therefore, self driving cars and shared trips may revolutionize the self-service storage industry.
According to research, shared travel reduces the number of cars, and fewer and fewer vehicles mean that garage will become a storage space for families. This will have a compression effect on the self-service storage market.
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In general, more population, less living space, less property ownership, more lifestyle, and a higher population flow are all important factors for the development of self-service warehousing.
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Looking at the domestic market, self-service warehousing is still in the early stages of development compared with the scale of the US $10 billion market.
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On the one hand, according to the study of "Asian self-service Warehousing: the demand for Asian storage space driven by demographic change" published by Shi state Wei in 2015, China is expected to become the next self-help storage market, while the urban characteristics of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen may provide good external conditions for self-service storage.
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On the other hand, it may restrict the development of self-service warehousing, whether it can be developed, the price, the awareness of consumption, and the habits of the residents.
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That is to say, in the process of urbanization, we still have differences with the US in the self-service storage market environment. In the long run, what will China's self-service warehousing look like?
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Source: Zida capital Laboratory