Think Storage reaches 80% occupancy in 8 months with Stora

80% occupancy in 8 months | 90% self-service bookings | run in 15 to 20 hours a week

“It doesn’t take much time for us and it’s efficient for our clients, which is what Think Storage is all about.”

— Sarah Mackie, Co-Founder

Who are Think Storage?

Think Storage is a family-run indoor self storage facility at Larchfield Estate, a 425-acre heritage Georgian estate near Lisburn, Northern Ireland. Co-founders Sarah and Gavin Mackie converted underused agricultural sheds into 96 custom-built units, and have just opened a third shed with 20 extra tall units for customers who need more height.

Think Storage is Northern Ireland’s first carbon-negative self storage facility, and it runs alongside the estate’s established weddings, events, and accommodation business. The site now has 116 units, ranging from 13 to 240 sq ft.

The Challenge

Larchfield Estate is a working heritage estate, and keeping it maintained is expensive. The business had traditionally relied on weddings, corporate events, and accommodation, and COVID exposed the risk of depending so heavily on one income stream.

“COVID was a good lesson in why you don’t have all your eggs in one wedding basket.”

— Sarah Mackie, Co-Founder

The estate had old farm sheds sitting virtually empty: no income, and not looking their best. Sarah, who sits on a business development committee for Historic Houses across the UK, saw a fellow member running container storage and brought the idea home. They chose indoor storage over containers because the sheds were already there, reuse fitted the estate’s sustainability ethos, and revenue per square foot would be higher.

The constraint was time. Think Storage had to run lean alongside a busy events business, with no dedicated on-site team:

• Sarah and Gavin oversee the facility themselves: Sarah leads marketing, and Gavin’s engineering background steers him towards build and development.
• The business was new to self storage, with two and a half years of planning before launch.
• Customers needed to be able to book and move in without coordinating with staff.

The Solution

Sarah and Gavin did their research in person, attending Self Storage Association conferences and the FEDESSA conference in Portugal, where they met suppliers and compared software options at length before choosing Stora.

Stora now handles the day-to-day running of the facility:

• Self-service online booking, including same-day move-in: the system automatically allocates an empty unit of the right size, so customers can book and move in the same day, or reserve a unit up to 3 weeks ahead.
• Automated payments and invoicing through Stripe, with identity verification built into the booking flow.
• OpenTech access control integration, so bookings, payments, and access all talk to each other.
• Tasks for managing enquiries, with daily reminders allocated to individual subscriptions or leads.
• Analytics with real-time occupancy and performance data for business planning.
• Lead capture on sold-out units, so prospective customers can register interest before a unit becomes available.

The personal side stays personal. Sarah phones every enquirer to introduce herself and answer questions, and the estate setting does the rest.

“You drive in and you see apple trees, you have alpacas in the field to your right. You’re in a country environment.”

— Sarah Mackie, Co-Founder

The Results

Occupancy grew far faster than forecast. An industry consultant forecast it could take 2 to 3 years to reach 80% occupancy. Think Storage got there in 8 months, from a standing start with 96 units. The first two sheds now sit at around 90%, and 2 of the 20 new extra tall units were pre-booked within a week of opening.

The first booking came within days. The website was ready to go live the moment the facility was finished, backed by press releases, outreach to local estate agents and removal companies, and an established social media presence. The first customer found Think Storage online almost immediately, is still a customer today, and has recommended the facility to others.

The whole booking journey runs through Stora. Every booking goes through Stora, and 90% are made directly by the customer, with around 40% of bookings coming in outside office hours. Customers can go from first enquiry to being in their unit within minutes when they need to, and Think Storage has stepped in for several fast moves.

112 customers served to date. That includes Madlug, a Northern Ireland charity supporting children in foster care, which Think Storage provides with free storage for its bags.

Two people run the site in 15 to 20 hours a week. The facility operates alongside the wider estate business without a dedicated team. Admin that would otherwise be manual, including bookings, unit allocation, invoicing, payments, and identity checks, is automated.

Expansion is already planned. Two more sheds will be converted into around 90 additional units in January 2027, and Think Storage is open to sites beyond Larchfield Estate in the longer term. Stora’s multi-site capability means their existing systems will carry across.

What Sarah said

“With Stora, I can go online at any time, on my phone or the laptop, and alter something quickly and easily for a client. I had someone today wanting to change unit size. Bang, it’s done. It integrates seamlessly with the website and the access systems, and gives us real up-to-date information for running the business.

Anytime I get an enquiry, I feed it into the Tasks and get a daily reminder of what needs doing and who needs following up. And any random question we’ve got, the Stora team come back quickly. It doesn’t take much time for us and it’s efficient for our clients, which is what Think Storage is all about.”

— Sarah Mackie, Co-Founder, Think Storage

Want to learn more?

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