What’s the best way to track down exactly what your self storage competitors offer? How do you learn more about a competitor’s pricing?
What do you do with that information when you do have it?
It’s never been easier to gather information on competitors. You have tools at your disposal that offer varying levels of discretion and legwork. Today we’re breaking down competitive pricing in the self-storage industry–what to look for and how to get it. Best of all, most only require time and access to the internet.
Before we really get into how to research competitor pricing, let’s talk about why we want it.
As Mark Green of The Jenkins Organization puts it, “If you’re not paying attention to your market, you’re gonna get left behind.”
Knowing your competition’s prices lets you set a benchmark for your area. Since self storage is highly localized, prices vary drastically from one town to another. And since customers aren’t well-educated about your amenities, they’re often drawn to the price first.
In gathering data on your competitors’ prices, you get insight into your own pricing strategy. You don’t have to be cheaper than your competitors–but if you’re more expensive than your competitors, do you have a good reason why? Do you offer amenities your competitors don’t? Are you giving renters a reason to pay a little more?
On the other hand, if you’re marketing yourself as the affordable option, how much could a customer save by choosing you?
Knowing your market average lets you know how over or under your prices are. It also sends a signal to your sales representatives to prepare for questions about price.
But what if your competitor research reveals you’re in the same area as a bunch of REITS with cutthroat prices and even more aggressive rent increases? Customers will ask why you aren’t as cheap as the REITS–how can you respond?
Calling out a rate-lock guarantee on your website is one way to respond to REIT pricing. But there are other tactics you can use if you know your competitors’ pricing.
Mark Green offers insight into the matter. “If somebody asks you that question, at least you’re still in the neighborhood.” He suggests that too wide a gap between your price and the REITS, regardless of the reason, will keep you from a chance to make your sale at all. “At some point,” he says, “price will tip the scale.”
He suggests having a price that will still attract renters and a toolbox of aggressive concessions, ready to use when leads need that extra push. Better yet, “position yourself to not have the question asked.”
And you can accomplish that by understanding your competitor’s prices.
Scoping out self storage competitor prices gives you a better understanding of your market. But you may find that some of your competitors get rentals with higher prices than yours.
If you just look at raw numbers, you’re missing the bigger picture.
What specials do your self storage competitors run? What amenities do they have that you don’t? Do their prices change by season? Check in on their prices long-term, too. What long-term trends can you discover from repeated investigation?
You don’t just want to know if their prices differ from yours. You want to know why.
And with long-term data, you can answer another important question: how often do competitors’ prices increase? Having a competitive rate means knowing when you should raise your own rental rates, after all.
Want to go a step further? Look at customer reviews to see how customers perceive a competitor’s pricing and reviews. People in your market will speak up if they think rates or rate increases are unfair. And if they mention prices they’re happy with, that gives you more information for your own pricing strategy.
Not sure who your competitors are? Our Scouting the Competition Ebook can help!
Google your competition. Find their website or look at their social accounts. Your competitors aren’t exactly hiding their pricing. Realistically, if you have a competitor that either doesn’t have a website or won’t show their pricing…they’re probably not much competition.
Search on competitor websites for different sizes and amenities, and build up a comprehensive database of pricing by configuration. Remember to adjust your location information if you’re looking for regional or local pricing. It may vary by market.
Looking for information on competitor promotions? Local Facebook pages can give you information about a competitor’s business, especially when it comes to promotional pricing and short-term offers. You can even follow your competitors’ social channels for updates.
The downside to this method is, of course, the amount of legwork you’ll have to put in. It’s free to do, but can take a lot of time.
Self storage aggregator sites make comparing prices easy for leads–and for you. The same online services that help consumers comparison-shop between self-storage options can help you with competitive pricing research.
Since these sites aggregate pricing and product information from a large number of self-storage facilities, searching for information here is a great way to get maximum information with minimal effort.
After all, someone else has already put in most of the work.
Information on aggregator sites may be less current than what you find on competitor sites, though. Promotional discounts and special offers may not show up on aggregator sites, either.
A few of the more popular aggregator sites include Sparefoot.com, Selfstorage.com, Storageseeker.com, Findstoragefast.com, and Storage.com.
Go through your competitor’s sales process on the phone, on their website, or in person. You can learn pricing and get information about how they convert leads at the same time.
Simply dialing up your competitors and pretending to be a customer can give you very accurate pricing information as well as insight into customer service, inventory availability, and overall business health.
Remember to speak as a customer would speak. Using industry-specific language or asking for prices on every size and space configuration is likely to tip your hand.
Think about what you’re shopping for ahead of time, and keep it simple to avoid raising suspicion.
Have a little extra time? Nothing beats an actual trip to your competitor’s store.
Aside from getting information on pricing, take some time to evaluate the facility itself as well. Is staff available to assist you? Are the grounds well maintained? Ask questions and give the sales staff ample time to talk.
A front-line sales rep may give away important details about the overall health of the business when they’re just having a casual chat with a prospective customer. You can even ask about their competitors (you) to hear what they tell customers about your business.
Be warned - this will only work once!
When you pay for a monitoring service, you’ll get access to regularly updated industry data. While a monitoring service isn’t free, it can save you time or resources. No need to track down information on your own–you have pricing information and much more available on your dashboard.
Monitoring services can replace tactics like secret shopping when you’re dealing with a multi-location or multi-city business. Services like STR and Union Realtime do the legwork for you by researching and compiling competitive data into easily accessible reports.
Beyond pricing, many services offer additional competitive information like revenue and market share. When evaluating services, make sure to find out how often data is updated and what methods are used to get it.
Establish a rapport with your competition. You can discuss why you price things the way you do. Just make sure not to imply agreement to price-fixing.
The self storage industry is overall a friendly place. You can talk to a competitor ten miles away and learn about their pricing without either of you losing renters to one another. What you consider a competitor might actually be a fellow local business owner willing to share ideas.
So your competitor may not feel the need to hide their pricing. Any of our other methods give you a quick answer without needing to talk to your competitors. But a face-to-face meeting can remind you and your competitors that you’re all local businesses looking to succeed honestly.
There are advantages to building a relationship with your self storage competitors. Sure, you won’t be able to secret shop if you’re on a first-name basis with the facility a few blocks away. But you might find that the goodwill you foster with your neighbors outweighs it.
From a legal perspective, though, there is a difference in local businesses engaging in honest competition and unlawful practice.
It’s completely legal to discuss prices, deals, marketing tactics, and general tips and tricks of the trade with a competitor.
It’s illegal to collude with your competitor to fix prices. Doing so is a violation of antitrust laws.
Consult with your legal counsel if you’re unsure how to proceed.
AI assistants can perform web searches for public data found on competitor websites and even what customers say on message boards and in reviews. But double-check the data you get!
Interested in saving time by getting your AI assistant to do some of the legwork for you? Services like Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini can search the web–and can crawl multiple websites for information faster than you.
It’s not a matter of “can an AI get me competitor pricing,” though. Is using AI to get competitor pricing worth it? Is it legal?
Using an AI to get public information on a website is legal. It’s no different than you doing the work manually. You shouldn’t ask an AI bot to gather private information–but that’s generally true no matter what you’re doing.
Can an AI get you an accurate competitor analysis? Mileage may vary. An AI assistant can scan websites, message boards, even reviews quickly and give you a detailed report on competitor pricing, amenities, and public opinion. But it’s important to double-check your results. The AI’s designed to give you an answer–and that includes situations where it doesn’t understand what you’re asking.
No matter what tactic you use to get competitive pricing, it’s important to remember that prices change.
Review often to stay current. Set a reminder at least once per quarter to refresh your competitive pricing information. Collect data long-term and you’ll start noticing trends that you can use to your advantage.
Learn more about competitive pricing and extra tactics that give your self storage business a fighting chance:
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