Short answer: a self storage vending machine works at a busy facility with long gate hours, and it works best when it sells what customers forget: tape, boxes, locks, and a cold drink for the person loading the truck. We counted 83 self-storage listings in Burnaby, Richmond and North Vancouver. Richmond's had a median of 67 Google reviews and North Vancouver's 58, in the same range as Richmond's clinics (74); Burnaby's had 35. Storage sites have few staff, so these customer numbers are the traffic that matters.
This report is for self-storage owners and facility managers in Metro Vancouver, British Columbia, whether you run an independent site or one location of a chain. It uses VendFynd's own listing counts, City of Vancouver permit data and the BC tax and licence rules that apply to a machine on your property.
What we counted
| January 2026 run | Burnaby | Richmond | North Vancouver |
|---|---|---|---|
| Self-storage listings kept | 19 (of 24 found) | 27 (of 31) | 37 (of 60) |
| Median Google reviews | 35 | 67 | 58 |
| Middle half of listings | 3 to 80 | 3 to 212 | 26 to 211 |
| 100 or more reviews | 3 (16%) | 11 (41%) | 12 (32%) |
| Median rating (listings with a rating) | 4.85 (16) | 4.4 (24) | 4.7 (35) |
| Has a website | 15 of 19 | 23 of 27 | 35 of 37 |
| Primary Google type "moving company" | 12 | 8 | 12 |
VendFynd analysis of Google Places listings, January 2026: within 5 km of the Burnaby and Richmond city centres and 15 km of North Vancouver. See "About this data".
For comparison, in the same Burnaby and Richmond run, laundromats had medians of 89 and 102 reviews and industrial sites 11 and 8. Storage sits between the two: real customer traffic, but spread across a facility rather than sitting in one waiting room.
Two details from the table matter for vending:
- Storage and moving go together. 32 of the 83 listings carry "moving company" as their primary Google type, which usually means the site also rents trucks or sells moving supplies. A site that already sells boxes at the counter is the natural home for a machine that sells them after hours.
- The busiest sites are very busy. The top quarter of Richmond and North Vancouver listings had more than 210 reviews each. If your facility is one of those, it has more customer traffic than most offices we look at.
What sells at a storage facility
From years of placing machines, the storage sites that work carry two kinds of product side by side:
| Group | Typical items | PST in BC |
|---|---|---|
| Packing and moving | Packing tape, small and medium flat boxes, padlocks, labels and markers, bags | Taxable at 7% (general rate) |
| Drinks | Water, sports drinks, juice | Exempt, except soda, which is taxable at 7% |
| Snacks | Granola bars, chips, candy | Exempt (food, including candy and confections) |
PST treatment from the Ministry of Finance's Bulletin PST 206 (revised October 2026) and the general PST page. Bags are on the bulletin's taxable list; tape, boxes and locks fall under the general 7% rule because no exemption covers them.
The packing side solves the customer's real problem: they're at the unit door, the tape ran out, and the office closed an hour ago. The drinks side serves people carrying furniture on a warm day. Your staff decide the mix, and a machine can be a combination unit with spiral slots sized for small boxes and locks.
Card-only, and why that matters here
Storage gate hours often run well past office hours, so nobody is on hand to take cash or give refunds. A card-only machine with the operator's service number printed on it is the right setup; our cashless vending guide explains when card-only loses sales and when it doesn't. At a storage site, it almost never does.
The card reader has a small cost the operator pays, not you: Burnaby's business licence for a machine "using a credit card" is $112 in 2026 against $39 for a coin machine, and the schedule the City adopted on September 22, 2026 sets $117 and $41 from January 1, 2027. Richmond charges $37.50 per machine whatever it takes. More in our licence fee guide.
New storage buildings
Purpose-built storage is still being added. The City of Vancouver's permit data lists 7 permits with the use "Mini-storage Warehouse" since 2018, including new-building permits in Hastings-Sunrise in 2018 and 2020 (about $10.6M and $12.0M) and two new-building permits in Marpole, issued in November 2025 and March 2026 at $9.0M each. A new building is the easiest place to plan a machine: the outlet and the spot can go in with the fit-out.
Where the machine goes
- Inside, near the office or the main elevator, where customers pass on every visit and the machine is out of the weather.
- Within reach of an outlet, with room for a dolly to pass. A full-size machine is about 72 inches tall and 33–47 inches wide (check it against your door).
- Covered by your cameras. Most facilities already watch the office and the elevators.
With VendFynd, a machine is $0 to the facility: the operator covers the machine, install, stocking, service and removal, and you provide the spot and an outlet (about $15–20 a month in power for a drink machine; a non-refrigerated supplies machine uses less). It's month to month, 30 days' notice and no-cost removal, and most facilities receive a commission, agreed in writing before install. See if your facility qualifies with the questions an operator would ask, or try the site-fit scorer first. Terms are at /host-terms.
About this data
- Listings: VendFynd Lead Finder, earlier CLI version, January 2026. Burnaby and Richmond within 5 km of each city centre; North Vancouver within 15 km of the North Shore search point, kept only with a "North Vancouver" address (City and District together). Same self-storage search terms in each area. A listing without a review count counts as 0 reviews; ratings are medians of listings that have one. Reviews are a rough proxy for customer traffic, not a count of visits. No business is named.
- Permits: City of Vancouver "Issued building permits" open data, every permit with the specific use category "Mini-storage Warehouse" (7 records, 2018 to March 2026), read 2026-10-12. Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Vancouver.
- Rules: PST from Bulletin PST 206 (revised October 2026) and the Province's PST page; fees from Burnaby Bylaw 14485 (consolidation 2026.7) and Richmond Bylaw 8636.
Sources
- BC Ministry of Finance, Bulletin PST 206: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/taxes/sales-taxes/publications/pst-206-grocery-drug-stores.pdf
- BC Government, Provincial sales tax (PST): https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/taxes/sales-taxes/pst
- City of Burnaby, Consolidated Fees and Charges Bylaw No. 14485: https://bylaws.burnaby.ca/media/Consolidated/14485CC.pdf
- City of Richmond, Consolidated Fees Bylaw No. 8636: https://www.richmond.ca/__shared/assets/BL_8636_Consolidated_with_ABLs_10699__10702_and_10720_11102578073.pdf
- City of Vancouver, Issued building permits (open data): https://opendata.vancouver.ca/explore/dataset/issued-building-permits/
All accessed 2026-10-12.