Go Self Storage Brazil

Looking forward to the Brazilian self storage tradeshow November 4-5th in Sao Paulo!

From Inside Self Storage International 2013

By John Scheibe

I was looking through the September 2013 issue of Inside Self Storage magazine when an ad caught my eye.
There on page 26 was an announcement for the first Latin American self-storage trade show.
Sponsored by the Brazilian Self Storage Group, the show in early November promises to be a groundbreaking event as those in the nascent self-storage industry in Brazil and the rest of Latin America come together for the first time.

The vast majority of the more than 58,000 self-storage facilities worldwide are in the United States.
The ad announcing the Brazilian trade show took me back to the mid 1970s.
I was 18, living just south of San Francisco and unsure what I wanted to study in college. I decided to return to Brazil where I'd been spent my boyhood, the son of American parents. I was a typical California teenager: I owned a waterbed, a stereo, a fairly large collection of vinyl records and a few other odds and ends.
I thought I'd stay in Brazil for six months, enough time to refamiliarize myself with the country I'd been raised in. I didn't want to leave my belongings with my parents while I was gone. So I went looking for a place to store my stuff.
The only place I knew about at the time was Bekins Co. Founded in 1891 in my hometown of Sioux City, Iowa, Bekins owned more than 100 storage buildings in more than a dozen states in its heyday.
With less than a month to go before my departure to Brazil, I called a Bekins in nearby San Mateo, Ca., and was told that they could take my stuff and store it.I instead decided to leave my belongings in the garage of a friend's home.
What had originally been planned as a six-month stay, turned into nearly a six -year one. When I returned to the U.S. from Brazil in early 1980s, the self-storage industry had taken firm root here.

Opportunities and challenges
With some 300 million people, the U.S. has by some estimates more than 46,000 self-storage facilities. Brazil by comparison has roughly 200 million people, and less than 100 self storage facilities nationwide.
The opportunities for the self storage industry in Brazil are vast.
Brazil has the world's sixth largest economy in terms of nominal GNP.
Eight out of every 10 Brazilians live in cities. Brazil's middle class grew by an estimated 50 million people during the 10 years from 1999 to 2009. As with the middle class in many nations, Brazilian consumers are hungry for the latest gadgets and are quickly buying them, as well as appliances, refrigerators, dishwashers and more. Brazil has 115 cities with 225,000 people or more. It's largest city, Sao Paulo, has more than 20 million people in its metropolitan area. With the great majority of Brazilians living in cities, storage space is often at a premium.
A recent feasibility study on the self storage industry in Brazil found that the industry has the capacity to generate well over $1 billion annually there. GuardeAqui, which started its self storage operation in Sao Paulo, recently announced plans to open 50 facilities across Brazil by 2017.
My wife and I visited several self-storage facilities in Brazil during a visit there this year. All of the them appear to be doing very well. The most established one was a facility on the south end of Belo Horizonte. A representative at the facility told us they have been in business more than 10 years and have an occupancy rate of 87 percent. They said there is plenty of unmet demand for self storage in Belo Horizonte, a city with a population of more than 5 million in its metro area.
We were also told that one of the initial obstacles was getting Brazilian consumers used to the idea of a do-it-yourself industry like the self-storage business. Middle and upper-class Brazilians have historically depended on servants to do a lot of the manual work.
But all of this is quickly changing as Brazilians adopt to life in the 21st century.
The recent visit to Brazil only served to reinforce our belief that the self storage industry has a very good future there that is full of opportunities.We are in the process of choosing a location to open our first facility.

John Scheibe
CEO, General Manager of Go Self Storage Brazil
Contact Info:
Email:[email protected]
GoSelfStorageBrazil.com
805-338-2315

Partial skyline of Belo

Brazilian Self Storage Group to Host 2013 Tradeshow, Conference in São Paulo

From ISS Magazine:

Update 9/19/13 – Show organizers for Expo 13, a self-storage tradeshow that will be hosted by the Brazilian Self Storage Group in São Paulo on Nov. 4-5, have finalized the show’s lineup of speakers and guest panelists.

The previously announced international panel discussion of storage operators will feature Ernesto Arzac, president of Bodegas Usted Guarda in Mexico; Orlando Wong, general manager of MegaStorage in Panama; Mike Lukowiecky of Loq Storage in Costa Rica; and Flavio Del Soldato Jr., owner of Inbox Guarda Tudo in São Paulo. Allan Paiotti, CEO of GuardeAqui Self Storage in São Paulo, will serve as moderator.

Additional guest speakers include Eduardo Carvajal from Ixaya Business S.A. de C.V., who will discuss how to unearth key demographic data in Latin America, and Arie Rezepka, a licensed architect and president of Aki KB Minibodegas in Chile, who will talk about the challenges of building self-storage facilities throughout the region. David Blum, president of Better Management Systems LLC, a U.S.-based consultant that has assisted self-storage developers throughout the world, will discuss marketing and operations in emerging markets.

“To start day two, a one-hour workshop is planned to assist the newly formed regional self-storage associations in the mechanics of growing and managing local associations,” said Blum, who is also co-producing the show.

7/4/13 – The Brazilian Self Storage Group (BSSG), an affiliate association of the U.S. national Self Storage Association (SSA), will host its first tradeshow and education conference on Nov. 4-5 in São Paulo. The “All Latin Trade Show” will be held at the Secovi Convention Center and feature a keynote session on the importance of local associations presented by Patrick Reilly, chairman of the SSA. Additional presentations will discuss self-storage operations, and there will be a panel discussion with operators from a variety of nations, according to show organizers.

In addition to tradeshow exhibits and education seminars scheduled for both days, a welcome cocktail reception will be held on Monday, Nov. 4.