A staff member demonstrates the use of a self-storage facility in Shanghai on Tuesday. This service, relatively new to the city, caters to families with limited space at home. [Photo / China Daily]

SHANGHAI - A Western practice has landed in China to solve a new dilemma for urban residents: too much stuff and not enough space.

The self-storage industry, available in many Western countries, is starting to take root in China as people look for places to stash their excess valuables and commercial goods.

Xie Fang, 30, rented a 5-cubic-meter space for three months at the cost of 689 yuan ($109) per month at Youyou Space at the end of last year.

For Xie, the biggest attraction was that she could get into her little warehouse at anytime of the day - even at 11 pm. "I don't worry too much about security, because there are 24-hour cameras monitoring the space. In addition to that, they control both temperature and humidity so that my expensive cosmetics won't go bad."

Chen Yu, executive customer manager of Youyou Space, a 3,000-square-meter, 24-hour self-storage space located in Shanghai's Wujiaochang area of Yangpu district, said items stored in his space could be anything ranging from collections of antique calligraphy and paintings to luxury cosmetics or brand-name bags.

"Unlike a huge warehouse, we don't control the content of the storage, but we don't accept dangerous objects, such as firecrackers," he said.

The size of private self-storage varies from 0.7 to 20 cubic meters, and the prices range from several hundred yuan to more than 1,000 yuan per month.

"Sometimes our clients store their household wares here so that they could rent out an extra room," said Chen who started the business about one year ago. "We've got both individual and corporate clients, and the majority of our customers are either white-collar workers or foreigners."

Chen said winter and spring are the industry's busiest seasons because those are the times when people start spring cleaning for the Chinese New Year. "Currently about 30 percent to 40 percent of our 1,000 private storehouses are rented out," he said.

The occupancy rate is around 10 to 20 percent during the low season.

Youyou Space was Chen's first venture in the self-storage business.

He said that his current business is operated out of rented space, but he plans to expand by purchasing his own facilities in the future.

Easy Storage, which opened its first business in Shanghai last August, has already established four outlets within six months. "We rent out the space for about 200 yuan per cubic meter and the 2-cubic-meter one is the most popular," said Lei Yongsheng, a member of Easy Storage's promotional staff.

Lei added that the company just opened new space for wine storage in February for the relatively high-end clients but did not say the exact rent.

The idea of self-storage came from abroad, and it is short for self-service storage.

Louis Hill, a representative of Drivers Jonas Deloitte, a chartered surveyor in the United Kingdom that helps the Self Storage Association UK (SSA) to prepare its annual report, wrote in an e-mail that he looks forward to increasing business in China. "There's likely to be a great future for self-storage in China because it gives great lifestyle flexibility and convenience," said Hill.