Martin Wild from Kinnovis explains how you can use AI to create dynamic pricing for your self storage operation.
If your aim for 2024 is to start pricing your self storage units dynamically and make your customer booking process more in line with that of hotels, flights and events, AI has made the process much easier. The technology now allows you to create an effective pricing strategy without needing to map out and input data manually. Thanks to AI tools like ChatGPT, the data analysis takes a few moments and a dynamic pricing strategy can be generated just as fast.
With the help of the 'scraper' tool in ChatGPT, for example, you can now easily crawl through local competitors' websites and extract key information. Take all your competitors in a 5-mile radius, simply copy and paste the link to their pricing page into ChatGPT and it will generate a complete competitor pricing table. With one prompt, you’ll have a list of their unit prices, cost per square foot and promotional discounts, along with any non-financial perks listed. By including the link to your own pricing page, you can also see exactly how competitive you are from the perspective of potential customers in your area. A fast task that can be repeated as often as you like, letting you keep on top of your competition’s price rises.
If you have the data, it's also useful to factor your facility's occupancy levels over time. By uploading historical unit occupancy rates from your management software into AI, you can see patterns at a unit-by-unit level. AI can then take this data, analyse it and identify key opportunities. Within a few moments, you’ll have a forecast for the best times to offer discounts or adjust rates to maintain an optimum occupancy level and maximise your yield management - based on your own facility’s performance!
If you’re a new facility or simply don’t have access to this information, you can still train AI to create a pricing model by considering external factors ...