Category: Business Storage

Will the unit be open when your market pitch starts at dawn?

The load is done by seven on a Friday evening. The van is packed: the gazebo, the trestle tables, the crates of stock, the signage and the bags of tissue wrap. Everything is in order. The one question left is whether the storage unit will be open when the market starts.

That is not a small question. A market pitch starts early. Set-up time is before most people have had breakfast. If the unit is not open, or if getting in requires a phone call or a key-holder, the whole morning falls apart.

This page gives you a straight answer to that question, and explains exactly what a Wigwam unit can do for a market trader or pop-up retailer, and what it cannot.

Storage built around your trading week

Wigwam units work with the rhythm of a market week, not against it. The Friday-night load, the Saturday-morning pull-out, the quiet spell in January: the way a unit is set up here is designed to fit around a trader’s schedule, not the other way round.

The Friday-night load and the Saturday-morning pull-out

You can access your unit from 6am to 10pm, seven days a week, by smart entry. No key-holder to call. No waiting for a member of staff. You are in the system; the unit is yours to open when you need it.

In practice, that means you can load the van on Thursday or Friday evening, drive straight home, and pull back in before 6:15am on a Saturday to pick up the last few boxes before you head to the pitch. It fits around a market schedule the way a lock-up does when it works, without the scarcity and the uncertainty that come with finding a good one.

The access window runs right through the trading week. If you run a Sunday car-boot alongside a Saturday market, you are not restricted to one early morning. Seven days means seven days.

Why a unit beats a lock-up or a long commercial lease

A commercial lease is written for a business that knows it will be in the same place for twelve months or more. A market trader testing a new pitch, or running a seasonal Christmas-market circuit, does not know that. The commitment is the wrong size, the cost is the wrong scale, and the exit is rarely clean.

A Wigwam unit starts from a two-week minimum. There is no twelve-month lease to sign, no long-form commercial agreement, no landlord who needs thirty days’ notice in a specific form. The deposit is refundable. When you give 14 days’ notice, vacate the unit and settle the account, the deposit comes back. That is a different financial proposition to a non-returnable premium on a long-lease lock-up.

Lock-ups, where they exist, are also scarce in most market towns. They tend to be in industrial estates a drive away from the pitch, and the availability is rarely predictable. A Wigwam unit is booked online and ready when you need it.

Testing a new pitch without overcommitting

A new pitch is always a risk. The footfall might be wrong. The mix of traders might not suit your product. December might be brilliant and January empty. The two-week minimum means you can take a seasonal run or try a new location without locking yourself into a contract that runs past the point where you know whether it is working.

If you clear the unit before the paid period ends, unused days are refunded. That matters in practice: if the Christmas-market run ends early, or the pitch does not work out, you are not paying for space you are not using. Full conditions are on the terms and conditions page.

Access hours: the honest answer

The market starts early. Here is exactly what the access hours are, stated plainly without dressing them up.

6am to 10pm by smart entry, seven days

Several storage providers in the UK market themselves on 24-hour access. Wigwam does not. The access window is 6am to 10pm by smart entry, seven days a week. If you need a unit you can open before 6am, that is worth knowing before you sign up.

For most market traders, 6am is not a limitation. It is an honest answer that actually lines up with how early a Saturday market allows set-up. If the market opens at 9am and you need to arrive at 7:30am to secure your pitch, unload and get the gazebo up, being in the unit at 6am gives you all the time you need.

The reason we say this plainly is not because 24-hour access is not possible anywhere. It is because a claim that does not hold up on the morning it matters is worse than a clear boundary that you can plan around. You know the window. Plan your week around it. It works.

How early access fits a market or car-boot start

Put it in practical terms. You are in the unit at 6am. The van is loaded by 6:20am. The unit is locked. You drive 40 minutes to the market. You are at your pitch before 7am with time to spare. The scenario works at the standard Wigwam window without needing a 24-hour service.

For a Sunday car-boot, the same calculation holds. Most car-boot sites open to sellers at 6am or later. Smart entry at 6am covers that. The 10pm close means you can return stock to the unit after a long Saturday session and be back out for Sunday with no additional steps.

Smart entry means you come and go with your own credentials. No queue. No waiting. No one to let you in or out.

What traders and pop-ups actually store with us

Stock, kit and seasonal lines. Here is what goes in a unit, and what does not.

Stock, packaging and seasonal lines

Boxed stock is the obvious one: whatever you sell, the unit becomes the place you hold the lines you are not carrying to the next market and the overflow from a busy order week. Alongside the stock itself, there is all the packaging: retail bags, tissue wrap, ribbon, bubble wrap, gift boxes and labels. These take up more space than most traders expect until they are not in the spare bedroom or the back seat of the car.

Seasonal lines work well in a unit. You can hold your Christmas stock from October and pull it down in batches as the season progresses, without filling your home with things that are not yet selling. After the season, the unit holds the leftovers until the next year.

Units at Wigwam are clean, dry and secure. That matters for stock: damp damages packaging before it damages the goods inside, and damp-damaged packaging is a sale lost. What Wigwam units do not have is climate control. There is no temperature or humidity management system. If you are storing goods that are sensitive to atmospheric or climatic change, a Wigwam unit is not the right solution and climatic damage is not covered under the contents-protection policy.

Gazebos, trestle tables, rails and signage

The physical kit of a market stall is bulky and awkward. A gazebo in its bag takes up the boot of a car or the back corner of a van and leaves it unusable for the rest of the week. Trestle tables stack, but you still need somewhere to stack them. Display rails take up floor space. Signage is usually too large to store flat in a domestic property without risking damage.

A single unit handles all of it. The gazebo goes along one wall. The tables stack against the back. The rails stand in a corner. The signage lies flat on top of the tables or leans against the wall. When Friday evening comes and the van is ready, everything is in one place and already organised for the next morning’s pull-out.

What cannot go in

Vehicles of any kind cannot be stored in a Wigwam unit. That includes vans, trailers, cars and any leisure vehicles. If you use a transit or a horse-box trailer for your pitch, the vehicle parks elsewhere; what goes in the unit is the goods it carries.

Goods that require climate or temperature control are not suited to a Wigwam unit, and climatic damage is excluded from the contents-protection policy. Hazardous materials and other prohibited items are listed on the terms and conditions page.

The right size for your stall and stock

A rough guide to unit size, from a few boxes to a full-van load. No prices on this page: for current pricing, the Wigwam pricing page gives you the numbers.

A guide from a few boxes to a full van load

If you are storing a small number of product lines, a few boxes, a fold-up table and some display materials, a small unit is usually enough. It gives you a place to keep the overflow and the packaging without the square footage of a larger space you are paying for but not filling.

If you are adding a gazebo, a full set of trestle tables, display rails and a couple of trolley-loads of boxed stock, you are looking at a medium unit. That is roughly the contents of a standard transit van: the van holds it to drive to the pitch, and the unit holds the same volume when the van is back home.

A larger operation, running several product categories, holding seasonal stock year-round, or serving both a physical market circuit and an online business from the same unit, will need a larger unit. If you are planning a Christmas-market season with a significant stock build, it is worth thinking ahead: a unit that fits a September stock level may be too small by the first week of December.

A Wigwam team member can talk through what size suits your setup. A unit size guide is also available if you want to work it out before you call.

Stacking and shelving your own unit

You control the layout. No one from Wigwam moves, sorts or reorganises what is in your unit. That is a feature, not a gap: you know your stock, you know which lines move fastest, and you can set up the unit to match the pull-out sequence for a Saturday morning.

Bring your own shelving if it helps. Most traders with a regular unit put heavy items on the floor, lighter packaging on shelves at mid-height, and fast-moving lines closest to the door. A clear pull-out path from the unit door to the van makes a 6am start considerably less stressful. The unit is yours to organise exactly as you need it.

Running stock through a unit, and where the line is

You access your own goods, on your schedule. Here is what that means in practice, and where the boundary is.

You are in control of your unit

You open the unit when you need it. You load what you need. You lock it again when you are done. Wigwam staff are not on site to manage goods, sort orders, or hand anything over. That is not a limitation: most traders prefer it that way. The stock is yours, the unit is yours, and the schedule is yours to set.

If you sell online alongside your market trading, you can use the unit as a stock-holding point you access yourself. You can pick lines from the unit at a time that suits your dispatch schedule. What Wigwam is not is a managed fulfilment or pick-and-pack service. There is no one on site to select items, pack them, print labels or hand parcels to a courier. It is a secure, individually alarmed unit you access on your own terms.

Deliveries and couriers: the unmanned-site rule

Wigwam sites are unmanned. That means there is no member of staff present during access hours to take deliveries, sign for parcels or receive goods on your behalf.

If you want a supplier or courier to deliver stock to your unit, someone from your own business must be there to receive it. You cannot arrange for a courier to deliver to the site when you are not present and expect the goods to be received. They will not be. The site is secure, the unit is locked, and no one from Wigwam is there to accept anything.

This is worth knowing in advance. If your restocking depends on regular courier deliveries, plan those deliveries for times when you or a colleague can be at the unit to meet the driver.

What it costs and the minimum stay

No prices on this page. The minimum commitment is short, the deposit comes back, and the full pricing is one click away.

Two-week minimum and a refundable deposit

The minimum stay is two weeks. You are not signing a six-month agreement or a twelve-month lease. Two weeks is the floor, and from there the arrangement runs flexibly.

A deposit is taken when you start. It is refundable. When you give 14 days’ notice, vacate the unit and settle the account, less anything owed, the deposit is returned. This is not a premium that disappears on signing. It is a deposit in the ordinary sense: held while you are a customer and returned when the account is clear.

For a trader who is testing a new pitch, running a seasonal circuit or operating in quiet months, this is a different kind of financial exposure to a long-lease lock-up. The cash comes back. The two-week minimum means the commitment is short enough to take without certainty about how long you will need the unit.

Refund of unused days if you clear early

If you clear the unit before the end of a paid period, unused days are refunded. A quiet January that ends sooner than you expected, a season that closes early, a pitch that did not work out: you are not paying for days you are not using the space for.

The pricing page has the current figures and the calculator to work out what a unit costs for your setup. It is worth doing that before you call, so you have the size and the time period clear in your mind.

Ready to check what is available near you? Get a quote at quote.wigwamstorage.co.uk

Keeping stock clean, dry and secure

The unit is individually alarmed and the site is secure. Here is what that covers, and what to have in place for your contents.

Individually alarmed units and smart entry

Each unit has its own alarm. The site is secure. Smart entry means the access system tracks who comes and goes, which adds a further layer of security beyond a padlocked door.

Units are clean, dry and secure. That is the Wigwam commitment on the condition of the space. There is no climate control. Temperature and humidity are not managed. If your stock requires a controlled environment, a Wigwam unit is not the right fit, and goods that suffer climatic damage are not covered under the contents-protection policy.

For most market-trader stock, including clothing, homeware, gifts, craft goods, seasonal lines and packaged food items that do not require refrigeration, a clean, dry and secure unit is the right environment.

Insuring your stock

Contents protection is mandatory. You have two options: take Wigwam’s RSA “Self Storage Customers’ Goods” policy, or prove your own cover is in place.

Wigwam’s policy is New-for-Old cover arranged through RSA. If you take it, declare the full replacement value of everything in the unit. If you declare less than the full value and need to make a claim, the payout is reduced in proportion. Under-insurance is not covered in full.

Theft claims require evidence of forced entry. Climatic damage is excluded. Do not take these as the full terms: the contents-protection page sets out what is and is not covered.

If you have your own business-insurance policy that covers goods in storage, check the policy wording carefully and be ready to provide proof to Wigwam. Not all commercial insurance policies extend to off-site storage.

Insurance law and consumer-protection rights differ in Scotland and Northern Ireland. If you are based in either jurisdiction, confirm your position with your insurer or a solicitor.

Storage in your market town

Wigwam is based in the UK market towns where traders trade. The locations are not on retail parks or out-of-town industrial estates chosen for volume. They are in the towns themselves.

Find your nearest Wigwam location

Wigwam Self Storage Bath in Somerset and Wigwam Self Storage Lincoln in Lincolnshire are two of our UK market-town locations. We also have units in Reading, Cheltenham, Burton upon Trent, Dorking, Bromsgrove, Tewkesbury, Warminster, Leatherhead and Marlow, among others. The full list is on the locations page.

If you run a circuit of markets across several towns, it is worth knowing which Wigwam locations sit closest to each pitch. A unit in the same town as the Saturday market means a shorter drive on Friday night and on Saturday morning.

What to bring and what to expect on your first visit

When you start with Wigwam, bring your payment details and your contents-protection documents. If you are using Wigwam’s RSA policy, that will be arranged as part of the sign-up. If you are proving your own cover, have the policy details or insurer confirmation ready.

Smart entry means you use your own access credentials at the site. There is no key to collect from a member of staff and no code to request. The system is set up when you start and from that point you come and go on your own schedule.

The site is unmanned. That is exactly what most traders want: a secure unit they can access without coordinating with anyone. It is also what it means in practice for deliveries, as described above. Come when you need to, load or unload, lock up and leave. That is the experience, straightforwardly.

Get a quote

If your stock needs a home near the market, we will show you what is available in your town. The quote covers the unit size, the location and the current pricing, with no obligation.

Get a quote at quote.wigwamstorage.co.uk

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I use my Wigwam unit as a business address or have business rates apply to it?

No on the business address, and business rates are not something you arrange or pay through us. The unit is for storing your stock and kit and for your own access to it. It is not a registered office, a trading address, or a place you can list as your business location for Companies House, HMRC or your customers. If you need a registered or correspondence address, that is a separate service from a different kind of provider.

On rates: a self-storage unit is part of a storage facility, and the way it is rated sits with the operator and the wider site, not with you as a customer renting space inside it. You are paying a storage charge for the unit, not taking on a commercial tenancy with its own rateable value. If you are trying to work out the rates position for your business as a whole, that is a question for your accountant or your local authority, not for the Wigwam support team, who handle storage matters only: sizing, availability, access, pricing, invoicing and booking.

What you can do with the unit is straightforward and useful: hold your stock and packaging there, run your dispatch around your own access from 6am to 10pm, and keep your home clear of the trade. What you cannot do is treat it as the legal or trading address of the business. Keep those two things separate and the arrangement is clean. For the booking and cost side, the pricing page and a quote will give you the figures.

What happens to my stock in the unit overnight and on the days I am not trading?

It stays exactly where you left it, in an individually alarmed unit on a secure site, untouched by anyone. That is the quiet value of a unit for a trader: on the days between pitches, your stock is off your floor, out of your van, and in a space you do not have to think about. Each unit has its own alarm, separate from every other unit, and smart entry means the access system tracks who comes and goes, so there is a record of entry rather than an open door.

Nobody from Wigwam goes into your unit. Staff do not handle, move, count or reorganise your goods. The site is unmanned, which means there is no one wandering the corridors and no one with a master key to your space. Your stock is yours alone to access, and only you and anyone you have given your access to can get in.

Two honest points worth holding in mind. First, the unit is clean, dry and secure, but it has no climate control, so anything genuinely sensitive to temperature or humidity is not suited to it and climatic damage is excluded from the contents-protection policy. For ordinary market stock, clothing, homeware, gifts, crafts, packaged non-perishable goods, dry and secure is the right environment. Second, security cover is why contents protection is mandatory: you either take Wigwam’s RSA policy or prove your own, and theft claims require evidence of forced entry. Declare the full replacement value of the stock you hold, because under-insurance is settled in proportion.

Can I share a unit with another trader to split the cost?

You can, in the sense that the unit is your space to use as you see fit, but it brings practical and insurance complications that most traders are better off avoiding. The account, the access and the contents protection all sit with the named customer. If you let another trader keep their stock in your unit, their goods are in a space booked in your name, accessed on your credentials, and that tangles up two things that are cleaner kept separate.

The insurance point is the one to take seriously. Contents protection is mandatory and is arranged against the declared replacement value of the goods in the unit. If a second trader’s stock is in there and something happens, whose declaration covers it, and who claims? Mixing two businesses’ stock under one declaration is the kind of arrangement that causes disputes at exactly the wrong moment. The honest answer is that a shared unit is rarely worth the saving once you think it through.

If two of you genuinely want to split storage to save money, the cleaner route is usually two smaller units, each in its own name, each with its own access and its own cover. You still get sites in the same market town, the same short two-week minimum, and the same refundable deposit on each. Get a quote for the sizes you each need at quote.wigwamstorage.co.uk and compare that against one shared space before you decide. For most traders, keeping the businesses separate is worth a little more on the monthly cost.

My stock outgrows the unit at Christmas and shrinks in January. Can I change unit size through the year?

Yes, and this is one of the things the terms are built for. A seasonal trader’s footprint is not constant: you build stock through the autumn for a December peak, then shed it in the quiet new year. Rather than paying year-round for the space you only need in December, you can size up when the season demands it and size back down when it passes, subject to what is available at your nearest location at the time.

The mechanics are simple. Moving to a different unit is a matter of taking the new size and clearing the old one. The two-week minimum applies, and the refundable deposit and 14-day notice work per unit, so when you leave the larger unit you give notice, vacate, and the deposit comes back once the account is settled, with unused days refunded if you leave a paid period early. There is no long lease tying you to a peak-season footprint through a dead January.

The practical tip is to plan the build ahead. A unit that comfortably holds your September stock level can be tight by the first week of December once the seasonal lines land, so it is worth thinking about your peak when you choose the size, or booking the step-up before the stock arrives rather than after it is sitting in your hallway. Availability does vary by site and by season, so check early. A quick quote at quote.wigwamstorage.co.uk shows what sizes are free at your location, and the local team can talk through the timing if you tell them roughly when your peak falls.

If my packaging or stock gets damp-damaged in the unit, am I covered?

It depends entirely on the cause, and this is worth understanding before you store anything that matters. Wigwam units are clean, dry and secure, which for ordinary market stock is the right environment and means damp should not be an issue in normal use. But the contents-protection policy excludes atmospheric and climatic damage, so damage caused by humidity or condensation rather than by an insured event is not something you can claim for.

That makes the practical prevention more important than the cover. A few things keep stock and packaging in good condition:

• Bring stock in dry, and do not pack damp boxes or fabric into the unit.
• Keep boxes off the floor on a pallet or shelving rather than directly on the slab.
• Do not overpack so tightly that air cannot move around the stacks.
• Store anything genuinely sensitive to temperature or humidity elsewhere, because the unit has no climate control and is not the right home for it.

For the things a trader most worries about, water ingress, theft, the policy works on the usual terms: theft claims require evidence of forced entry, and you must have declared the full replacement value, because under-insurance is settled in proportion. If you are holding high-value stock, read the cover properly at the contents-protection page, and if your own business policy already extends to goods in storage, check the wording and be ready to prove it rather than assuming it carries over. This is a signpost to the policy, not insurance advice; for anything specific to your stock, speak to your insurer.

Does the house still belong to you, or has the business taken it over?

It starts as a minor inconvenience. A few boxes stacked in the corner of a bedroom. Then the landing. Then the garage. Then the car. Then one morning you are stepping over a pile of poly mailers at half past six, hunting for the parcel that needs to go out before the school run, and you realise the house no longer belongs to you. It belongs to the business.

The answer does not have to be a warehouse contract or a fulfilment company you have never visited. For a lot of UK online sellers, the right move is a self-storage unit a short drive from home. One where you hold the access code, you know exactly what is on each shelf, and you can be in and out before breakfast.

That is the model this page explains. Honestly, including the parts that other pages leave out.

Is a self-storage unit right for your online shop?

For most online sellers whose stock has grown beyond what the house can hold, yes, with one condition: you need to understand what “self-access” actually means before you sign. It is not a managed warehouse. Nobody picks for you, nobody signs for your deliveries, and nobody tidies the shelves between visits. That is the point. You are the one in control.

When the spare room, garage and hallway have run out

There is a moment every growing online seller hits. The business is doing well. The problem is that success looks like a hallway blocked with returns, a spare room that a guest cannot sleep in, and a car that smells faintly of packing tape. The home-as-warehouse arrangement that worked at twenty orders a month stops working at a hundred.

A self-access unit does not solve every problem. What it does is put a clear line between your home and your business. The stock goes in the unit. The house becomes the house again. Most sellers who make this move say they should have done it six months sooner. The decision feels bigger than it is, especially the first time you look at the monthly cost. But once you are picking orders from a unit you have properly organised, the alternative – the stepover, the search, the apology to your partner – quickly feels harder than paying a monthly fee.

A unit you control vs a hands-off 3PL

The honest comparison is this. A third-party logistics company picks, packs and ships for you. You never see the stock. You do not handle the orders. That is the right model for some sellers, particularly those with high volumes and no time to spare. But you lose visibility. You lose the ability to check a product before it ships. You lose the hands-on quality control that matters when you are the one who chose every item, graded every piece of clothing, described every listing.

A self-access unit is the opposite. You do the work. In return, you make every decision. You are still the one running every order, which for most sellers at this stage is not a compromise. It is the whole point.

What “inventory you access yourself” actually means

The phrase in the title is not marketing shorthand. It is a precise description of how this model works. You have the smart-entry credential. You open the unit. You find the stock. You pack the order. You lock up. At no point does anyone else do any of those things on your behalf.

You hold the smart-entry key and pick your own orders

Access is by smart entry, seven days a week, from 6am to 10pm. That is the real window. It is not 24-hour. It is not “24/7.” Several national competitors advertise that; we do not, because ours is 6am to 10pm and we would rather tell you plainly.

For the vast majority of online sellers, that window is more than enough. You can be at the unit at 6.30am, pull everything you need for that morning’s dispatch, and be back home before the children are up. You can restock on a Tuesday evening after the Vinted notifications come in. You can do a big Saturday morning sort before the market. The hours fit around a real seller’s day because most of the work happens at the edges of the working day, not at 3am.

No fulfilment middleman touching your stock

Every order goes through your hands. That means every order leaves the unit in the condition you intend it to leave. No pick errors from a warehouse system you did not set up. No mystery dents on a returned item. No batch-delayed dispatch because a fulfilment centre is processing a backlog.

The trade-off is honest: you do the work. Every trip to the unit, every box sealed, every label printed is yours. For the seller who takes pride in that, it is not a burden. It is the model.

Access hours and smart entry: the honest version

Access is 6am to 10pm, seven days a week, by smart entry. Not 24-hour. Here is why that distinction matters and why, for most online sellers, it probably does not.

6am to 10pm, seven days, by smart entry

Smart entry means no key to lose and no staff member to let you in. You arrive, you enter, you access your unit. The system works every day of the week, including bank holidays.

The 6am to 10pm window covers every practical dispatch and restock scenario for a seller running same-day or next-day fulfilment. The one scenario it does not cover is a late-night emergency restocking run at midnight. If your operation genuinely requires 24-hour access, that is worth knowing before you book, not after.

Competitors who advertise “24/7” may genuinely offer it. We are not in that comparison. We offer clean, dry, secure units with smart entry from 6am to 10pm, seven days, and we say so at the start.

Planning your pick-and-pack schedule around a 6am to 10pm window

The sellers who use self-storage well tend to build a routine around it rather than treating it as a drop-in whenever. A quick morning pick before 8am covers the orders that need to go out same-day. An evening run on Tuesday and Thursday handles restocking and labelling. A longer Saturday morning session deals with anything bulky or time-consuming.

That rhythm works well for a market-stall seller packing before a Sunday show, for an eBay reseller clearing a week’s worth of listings, and for an Etsy seller batching the packaging for a product launch. The window is not a constraint for most sellers. It is a timetable you can build a business around.

Deliveries, returns and the unmanned-site rule: read this before you commit

Our sites are unmanned. That means we do not sign for your couriers, we do not take in stock deliveries on your behalf, and we do not handle your customer returns. If a courier arrives at the unit, someone from your own business needs to be there to receive it. That is not a detail buried in the terms. It is the first thing we tell you.

Why our sites are unmanned and what that means for your stock

No staff member on-site means no staff member ever handles your goods. Nobody moves a box, opens a unit, or accepts a parcel on your behalf. The upside of the unmanned model is total control: from the moment your stock enters the unit to the moment it leaves, the only hands on it are yours.

The practical constraint is the other side of that same coin. When a supplier delivers a pallet, or when a courier comes to collect a customer return, someone from your business needs to be physically present at the site to receive it. You cannot book the unit and then arrange for your supplier to drop off while you are somewhere else. The key-in-your-pocket model means you are always the one holding the key.

For sellers who do not receive frequent inbound deliveries, this is rarely a problem. For those who take regular supplier drops, it is a logistical step that needs planning.

How online sellers handle inbound stock and customer returns in practice

The sellers who make this work tend to do one of a few things. They schedule deliveries for times they are already planning a unit visit, so the trip serves two purposes. They batch returns handling on a fixed day each week, so they are not making special trips. Where they have a business partner, a team member or a trusted colleague who can cover, they arrange someone to be present for large inbound deliveries.

What nobody should do is assume the site will handle it for them. We will not, and any operator who suggests otherwise is either misinformed or being imprecise about what “unmanned” means. The honest position is this: your stock, your responsibility, your control.

Ready to see what a unit costs near you?
Get a quote at quote.wigwamstorage.co.uk.
No obligation. Just a clear price for the size and town that suits your business.

Choosing the right size unit for your stock

The right size depends on two things: how much stock you hold at peak, not at a quiet month, and whether you need room to work in the unit as well as store in it. Most sellers start smaller than they think they need and move up once they see how the space fills.

From a few shelves of small parcels to pallet-scale bulk inventory

A small online seller running Vinted or eBay part-time might need nothing more than a couple of bays of shelving, enough room to stand at a folding table, and a corner for outbound parcels. A more established seller taking pallet deliveries from a supplier needs more floor space, a clear path in from the door, and room to open boxes and repack without creating a bottleneck.

The size you need is on the pricing and size guide. We do not publish prices on this page because the right size for your stock at a particular location is a conversation, not a fixed table. The guide gives you the framework; the quote gives you the number.

Room to pack as well as store

The unit works as a packing space as well as a storage space. Sellers use it to label, seal, sort and stage outbound orders. That is entirely within how the unit is designed to be used.

What it is not is a permanent manned workspace or a retail counter you open to the public. The unit is for storage and for the work of picking, packing and despatching your own goods. For the full list of what is and is not permitted, the terms and conditions are the place to look before you commit.

Storing by product type

The type of stock you sell changes how you set the unit up, not whether a unit works for you. Here is a plain-language guide to the three categories that come up most often.

Clothing and soft goods: rails, bags and breathable boxes

Clothing stores well in a clean, dry unit. The practical setup is straightforward: a freestanding rail for anything that needs to hang, breathable garment bags for better stock, and clearly labelled lidded boxes for folded items by size or SKU. A unit on a solid floor with good ventilation and no damp is what you need for soft goods, and that is what you get.

One thing to be clear about: there is no climate control. No temperature regulation, no humidity management. The unit is clean and dry and secure. For clothing that is not temperature-sensitive, that is sufficient. For specialist fabrics or items with specific storage requirements, pack accordingly and check your own product guidance.

Boxed goods, small electronics and moisture-sensitive items

Units are clean, dry and individually alarmed. For boxed goods and standard retail stock, that is more than adequate. Electronics and anything moisture-sensitive need sensible packing: sealed boxes where possible, silica gel packets where appropriate, and placement off the floor rather than directly on it.

There is no climate control at any Wigwam site. If your product requires a temperature or humidity-controlled environment, this is not the right storage for it. If it needs clean, dry and secure, this is exactly the right storage. That is an important distinction to make before you book.

Larger or bulkier items and mixed-inventory sellers

Larger items need a clear path from the door and enough floor space to manoeuvre without knocking over shelving. The practical solution is a zone layout: an inbound zone near the door for new stock as it arrives, a main shelving zone for live inventory, and an outbound staging area where packed orders wait before you take them to the post office or courier depot.

Mixed-inventory sellers, those running multiple product lines or selling across platforms simultaneously, often find that sizing up by one unit size removes the daily frustration of a bottlenecked packing corner. A little room to breathe is worth more than the marginal saving on a smaller unit when you are in the space every other morning.

Running a tidy pick and pack from your unit

A well-organised unit is not complicated. It is a shelf for each product line, a clear path from the door to the packing corner, and a labelling system you can read at 7am without the lights fully on.

Shelving, a simple location code and keeping the fast-movers near the door

Freestanding shelving makes a significant difference to usable space because it takes inventory vertical rather than spreading it across the floor. The location system does not need to be sophisticated. A shelf letter and a box number is enough for most small sellers. Shelf A, Box 3 is a faster find than a spreadsheet search when you are trying to pick six items before 7am.

Fast-movers, the SKUs that go out daily, belong nearest the door. Overstock and seasonal items go at the back. New deliveries go in the inbound zone and only move to the shelving zone once they have been counted and labelled. That simple discipline means the unit stays usable rather than becoming the tidy version of the hallway problem you left at home.

A packing corner and a clear route to the door

A folding table, a roll of tape, a label printer if you use one, and a clear sight line from the shelves to the door. That is the packing corner. Keep inbound stock separate from outbound stock. Empty flattened boxes out of the unit regularly, because collapsed cardboard on the floor is the most reliable way to make a small space feel smaller than it is.

The unit should work like a micro-warehouse with a logical flow through it: in, process, out. Not as a general dumping ground that happens to be outside the house. The sellers who get the most from a unit are the ones who spend ten minutes at the start setting it up properly and five minutes at the end of each visit maintaining that order.

What it costs, and the honest answer to “is there a cheaper alternative?”

The honest answer is: it depends on what you mean by cheaper. A spare room costs nothing in rent. A 3PL may or may not cost less than a unit, depending on your order volume and the provider. A self-access unit sits in the middle: a predictable monthly cost you control, with no long-term contract locking you in.

Unit vs spare room vs 3PL, honestly

The spare room is free, in the sense that you already pay the mortgage or rent. But it comes with a ceiling on your stock volume, a practical limit on how professionally you can run orders from a residential space, and the ongoing friction of your home and your business sharing the same square footage. At some point the cost of that friction, to your home life and to your ability to scale, outweighs the absence of a storage fee.

A 3PL handles the physical work for you. For high-volume sellers who cannot be at a unit themselves, that makes sense. For a seller who wants to stay hands-on, who wants to see every product before it ships and handle every return personally, handing the stock to a third party is a loss of the thing that makes the business theirs.

A self-access unit is the in-between. You pay a monthly cost. You do the work. You keep complete control. That combination is not for everyone, but for the hands-on seller whose stock has outgrown the house, it is the option that preserves the model without requiring a warehouse lease.

Refundable deposit, two-week minimum stay and refund of unused days

There is a refundable deposit. Not “no deposit.” A deposit that is returned to you after a 14-day notice period, once you have vacated the unit and your account is settled with nothing outstanding. The notice period and the deposit are both there in the terms and conditions.

The minimum stay is two weeks. If you leave before the end of a paid period, unused days are refunded. That is the honest contrast with a warehouse lease or a 3PL contract: you are not locked in for a year. You give notice, you clear the unit, you get the unused days back and the deposit returned once everything is settled.

For exact costs and size options, the UK pricing guide is the right place to look. Prices vary by location and unit size, which is why we do not list them here.

Security and peace of mind for your stock

Each unit is individually alarmed, clean, dry and secure. That is the real claim, stated plainly. For a seller whose stock is also her business asset and her income, those four words matter more than any marketing phrase.

Individually alarmed units, clean, dry and secure

Individual alarms mean the unit is monitored at unit level, not just at site level. If something happens to your unit specifically, the alarm responds to that unit specifically. Clean and dry means no damp, no mould risk, no pest concern for a unit that meets the standard. Secure means the site and the unit are both protected.

There is no CCTV claim to make on this page beyond what the live site confirms. There is no climate control to add to the list. The honest security offer is individually alarmed, clean, dry and secure, and for stock that does not require specialist environmental conditions, that is a solid baseline.

Insuring your stock

Contents cover is mandatory when you store with Wigwam. You can take out our RSA “Self Storage Customers’ Goods” policy, or you can prove that your own commercial contents insurance covers goods held off-premises in a self-storage unit. What you cannot do is store without cover in place.

A jurisdiction note: the information below describes the policy available at Wigwam sites in England and Wales. If you are storing at a location in Scotland or Northern Ireland, regulatory and legal differences may apply. This page is a signpost only. Speak to your own insurance adviser for guidance specific to your situation and your business.

The RSA policy, what to declare and the under-insurance rule

The RSA “Self Storage Customers’ Goods” policy is opt-in. New-for-Old replacement. A GBP 50 excess. The detail that matters most is this: declare the full replacement value of everything you store. If you declare less than the full value and you need to make a claim, the settlement is proportional to the shortfall. Under-insure by a third, and a claim is settled at two-thirds.

Theft claims require evidence of forced entry. Climatic damage is excluded, which is consistent with the fact that there is no climate control in the units.

For anything specific to your policy or your situation as a business owner, your own adviser is the right person to speak to. The full details of the contents protection available through Wigwam are on the contents protection page.

Find stock storage in your market town

We are based in market towns across the UK, not city-centre depots. For most of the sellers who use our units, the site is a short drive from home, which is what makes the self-access model practical. You are not committing to a forty-minute each-way journey every time you need to pick an order. The unit is nearby, and nearby matters when you are going in before breakfast.

Our UK market-town locations

We have units in locations including Wigwam Self Storage Bath and Wigwam Self Storage Lincoln, as well as market towns across the rest of the UK. The full list of our locations is on the locations page. Find the town nearest you, check the unit sizes available, and get a quote from there.

We do not name a hard location count here because it changes as we grow. What stays the same is the model: market-town sites, short drives from home, smart entry from 6am to 10pm, and units that are yours from the moment you access them to the moment you hand them back.

Get a quote for your unit at quote.wigwamstorage.co.uk.
No obligation. Just a clear price for the size and town that suits your stock.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I use the unit’s address as my business or returns address?

This is a question to raise with our support team for your specific site, because the answer depends on the location and on what you mean by “use the address.” A storage unit is a stockroom, not a registered trading premises or a staffed receiving address. The sites are unmanned, so nobody here can take in a returned parcel, sign for a courier, or hold post for you. Listing the unit as your customer returns address, where buyers post items back to the site, does not work, because there is no one to receive those parcels and we do not accept goods on your behalf.

What sellers do in practice is keep their own home or registered business address as the contact and returns address, then batch the physical handling at the unit on a fixed visit. If you have a question about company registration, VAT, or how HMRC treats a storage address, that is one for your accountant. Our support team can talk you through sizing, availability, access, pricing, invoicing and booking, but they are not the right people to advise on tax or how you structure the business. For anything beyond storage logistics, speak to a professional adviser.

Can a member of my staff or a business partner access the unit instead of me?

Access is tied to the account and the smart entry credentials issued for it. If you run the business with a partner or have a trusted team member who needs to pick and pack while you are elsewhere, the practical step is to talk to our support team at your site about how access is set up on your account, rather than passing your own credentials around informally. The key point under the unmanned model is that whoever opens the unit is someone you have authorised, because there are no staff on site to check anyone in.

This matters most for inbound deliveries. If a supplier is dropping a pallet while you are away, someone from your own business has to be physically present to receive it, because we will not take it in for you. Many sellers solve this by having a partner or colleague cover those slots. Build it into the rota the same way you would a dispatch shift. The honest position is that the goods are your responsibility from the moment they arrive to the moment they ship, so the access arrangement needs to reflect who is actually doing the work.

What if my stock value grows past what I declared for insurance?

Update your declared value as your stock grows, rather than leaving it at the figure you set when the unit held half as much. Contents cover is mandatory, and if you take Wigwam’s RSA “Self Storage Customers’ Goods” policy you declare the full replacement value of everything in the unit. The detail that catches sellers out is the under-insurance rule: if you declare less than the true value and you make a claim, the settlement is reduced in proportion to the shortfall. Declare half of what is actually there, and a claim pays at half.

For a growing online shop, stock value is a moving target. A unit that held a few thousand pounds of inventory in spring can hold several times that by the Christmas peak. The sensible habit is to review the declared figure whenever your holding changes meaningfully, not just at renewal. We are signposting here, not advising. The full detail on the policy, the GBP 50 excess, the New-for-Old basis and what is excluded, is on the contents protection page. For whether the cover suits your particular business, speak to your own broker.

Can buyers or couriers collect orders directly from the unit?

A courier can come to the site, but someone from your own business has to be there to hand the parcel over, because the sites are unmanned and we do not release goods, sign for collections, or supervise handovers on your behalf. So a courier collecting outbound orders works only if you have planned to be present for that slot. Buyers turning up to collect in person is not how the unit is designed to be used: it is a stockroom in a storage facility, not a shop or a click-and-collect counter, and you cannot run retail sales or a public collection point from it.

The way sellers make collections work is to batch them around a visit they are already making. If a courier collects at a set time on a fixed day, you are there for that window anyway, picking and packing. For returns coming back in, the same rule applies in reverse: you have to be present to receive them, so most sellers handle returns on one scheduled day a week rather than expecting the site to take them in. Plan the collection and return runs around your own presence, and the model works cleanly.

Does storing stock here count as a 24-hour fulfilment operation? What about late-night dispatch?

No. Access is 6am to 10pm, seven days a week, by smart entry. It is not 24-hour, and we will not pretend otherwise even though some national operators advertise round-the-clock access. For the overwhelming majority of online sellers, the 6am to 10pm window covers every realistic dispatch and restock scenario, including an early pick before the working day and an evening restock run. The one thing it does not cover is a genuine midnight emergency, and if your operation truly depends on overnight access, it is better to know that before you book than after.

The honest way to think about it is that storage with smart entry is not the same as a manned fulfilment centre running shifts around the clock. Nobody picks for you, nobody ships overnight, and the unit is locked outside the access hours. What you get in return is total control of your own stock at a predictable monthly cost, with no fulfilment middleman touching your goods. For a hands-on seller building a routine, that trade is usually the whole point, not a limitation. Build your dispatch rhythm around the window and it rarely feels like a constraint.