The Disposable Generation

Who will be next year's self-storage customer?

By Shaun Ferguson

I received afunny e-mail the other day that a university had supposedly sent out to professors to helpthem better identify with the incoming freshman class. After the initial humor wore off, Igot to thinking about what the e-mail implied about this next generation of potentialself-storage users. Here is a portion of the message:

The freshman class of the year 2000 was born in 1982/83:
1. They really don't get the phrase "like a broken record" because they havenever owned a record player.
2. They have always had a microwave oven in the kitchen.
3. They don't know who Nixon was, and few remember Reagan.
4. They have always had cable TV and video games.
5. They have never seen a 12 oz. Coca-Cola in a glass bottle, nor turned one in for candymoney.
6. Fast food has always come in cardboard containers.
7. They don't know who was in the Rat Pack, or even the Brat Pack, for that matter.
8. They have always made popcorn in the microwave ....

The list went on, and I began to feel old, although I had only just graduated highschool in 1983 (I can hear some of you groaning now). After reading the list, I beganthinking about the customers at my facility, and realized that much of my clientele is myage or older, that I really did not have many younger tenants. Granted, all of ourproperties are indoor, climate-controlled facilities that have higher rates than regularoutside storage; yet, even allowing for the limiting factor of higher prices, I realizedthat we have a disproportionately older market to which we cater. So began myinvestigation into who next year's customers will be.

A Bit of History

It became clear to me we needed a better understanding of the psychology of storageusers. Many of my older clients' parents were born in the 1920s, during a time ofprosperity for the United States, a time much like today. When the Depression hit, itaffected everyone, and it soon became imperative that families held onto all of theirpossessions, as they did not know if they could replace them in the future."Hoarding" is a harsh word, but it is in essence what became a majorpsychological force during those times. They became accumulators. They kept everything,and the adage "waste not, want not" became doctrine.

Roosevelt's New Deal helped bring America out of its worst times ever, but thedisciplines learned during that time remained. Survivors of the Depression taught the babyboomers, those born after World War II, the value of a penny saved and an old table kept.The boomers could recall their parents' stories of the times of destitution and set out tomake sure it never happened to them. They continued to be accumulators, as were theirparents, but for different reasons. Materialism, defined by Webster's as "thetendency to be more concerned with material than spiritual or intellectual values,"became the defining characteristic of the boomers, and they became the first generation ofself-storage users.

Older people looked upon the boomers' children, dubbed "Generation X" (born1965 through 1977), as "slackers," and predicted they would become the firstgeneration in American history to not exceed the prosperity of its parents. GenXers heardstories of the difficulties previous generations experienced, but had a hard time relatingto them as they watched their parents move into bigger and bigger houses, buy moreexpensive cars, and live their lives in excess. Seeing their parents suffer fromalcohol/drug abuse and dying of stress-related strokes and heart attacks years beforetheir time, many GenXer's rejected the materialism that defined their parents.

Generation Y, born in the late '70s and early '80s, and influenced by the GenXers'abandonment of materialism, found a need for instant gratification. They have been growingup in a time when as much as 60 percent of all marriages end in divorce and single-parentfamilies have begun to outnumber the traditional two-parent family unit¹,leading to the feeling that all things, including spouses, are disposable. If it doesn'tsuit your needs right now, get a new one, whether it's a job, spouse, furnishings, etc.This complete 180-degree turn in ideology from just two generations earlier has producedthe "Disposable Generation," and the self-storage industry's next customers.

The 'Disposable Generation' and Self-Storage

Herein lies the problem facing owners and managers of storage facilities in the nextfew years to come: a generation of potential renters that typically has less disposableincome, places less value on material belongings than its predecessors, and does notpossess the "hoarding" instinct that is the mainstay of our industry. Indeveloping future marketing strategies, storage facility owners and managers must beginlooking at this next generation's world perspective and figure out what will motivate themto choose our storage facilities rather than mom and dad's garage or the curb out front tostore their belongings. The following are a few observations and ideas I have been workingwith in developing future marketing campaigns:

If your company does not have Internet access, consider getting it soon; the nextgenerations of renters are learning to use the web in elementary school and will soon beturning to the Internet before they turn to the phone book. AOL and other servers are alow-cost addition to your budget and even provide space for you to create a home page atno extra charge. Some sites cater to the self-storage industry and will put your facilityon the web for free. If you really want to be effective with your Internet presence,register your own web domain (www.your store's name.com).

We have some interesting times ahead of us as an industry. The U.S. Census shows the"Disposable Generation" to be one of the smallest generations in terms ofpopulation in many years². That, coupled with their increased need for instantgratification and less desire to "hoard" belongings as their parents did, shouldhave us all considering what approaches will effectively tap into this market. So, howmuch does your company know about who your next customers will be, and is it prepared tomeet their changing needs?

Shaun Ferguson is the manager of ClimaStor II, a climate-controlled facility inShreveport, La. For more information, call (318) 686-7867.