Garden Storage is run by CC Marketing Ltd, a small independent UK retailer based in Darlington. We started because we got tired of replacing garden storage every two years.
Why we started
The story is genuinely boring: we bought a £80 plastic storage box that fell apart in two summers. The lid warped, the plastic went brittle from UV, the hinges seized. Replaced it with a wooden one that needed re-staining every year. Replaced that with a metal one that rusted at the seams within four years. By the third unit we'd spent more than a properly-engineered piece would have cost in the first place — and produced three pieces of landfill in the process.
That's the whole reason this site exists. We got serious about understanding what actually makes outdoor storage last in UK weather, and started picking products on that basis. The range is narrower than the larger retailers because we say no to a lot.
How we choose what to stock
Four standards, applied in order:
- UV-stabilised plastics over commodity HDPE. The difference shows up in year three: stabilised resin still looks new, commodity plastic has gone chalky and brittle. Premium UV-stabilised builds add roughly £20–40 to wholesale cost; we think it's the most important £20–40 in the whole product.
- Hot-dip galvanised steel over thin powder-coated metal. Hot-dip galvanising bonds zinc into the steel's surface; powder-coating just paints over it. Powder-coated metal looks fine until the first scratch reaches the steel — then rust starts spreading under the paint and within five years you've got a structural problem. Hot-dip is barely more expensive at manufacturing scale and lasts decades longer.
- Properly pressure-treated timber meeting BS 8417 Use Class 3. The British Standard for timber used outdoors. Untreated softwood has no business being outdoors in the UK; "treated" without specifying the standard is meaningless. We only stock timber products that meet or exceed Use Class 3.
- Real assembly times and parts counts — not the optimistic ones manufacturers print on the box. We assemble samples of every product before listing, and quote times based on what actually happens. Manufacturer claims are usually 30–50% under reality.
If a product doesn't pass those tests, we don't stock it. That's why our range is curated, not exhaustive — and why we're confident in everything on the site.
What we're not
We're not the biggest UK retailer. We're not the cheapest. We don't run sale campaigns; the prices on the site are the prices, all year. We don't have an enormous warehouse with everything in stock — most lines come direct from manufacturers via UK distribution.
We're also not yet certified for things you might see other retailers claim:
- Not B Corp certified. We're working towards it but haven't applied yet.
- Not FSC chain-of-custody certified ourselves. Some specific products we stock are FSC-certified by their manufacturer; those are flagged on the product page. We don't claim FSC across the catalogue because that would be misleading.
- Not carbon-neutral certified. Anyone telling you their delivery is "carbon-neutral" should be able to show you the registered offset. Most can't; we don't claim what we can't evidence.
We'd rather under-promise here than dress the business up.
Where we are
CC Marketing Ltd
2 Peel Court, 24 St. Cuthberts Way
Darlington, England, DL1 1GB
Company no. 14089914 (registered in England & Wales).
Email: hello@garden-storage.com
Phone: +44 7383 567839 — Mon–Fri 9am–5pm.
The honest bit
We're a small business, not a department store. Sometimes things go wrong — a courier loses a pallet, a manufacturer ships the wrong colour, a packaging seam tears in transit. When that happens, we sort it; we don't fight you on the rebound. The fastest path to resolution is always email with photos and an order number, and we'll have a fix within one working day.
Thanks for reading this far. If you've got a question about a product or want to know whether something will fit your space, just get in touch — we'll give you a straight answer.