It is no wonder that every e-commerce business that sells physical goods needs a place to store them. No matter what the size of the business is, without a place to store the goods, the business can’t fulfill its orders.
Especially with such rapid growth in e-commerce in recent years, the concept of warehousing is gaining more importance than ever before.
But what is a warehouse exactly and what is warehousing? Does your business actually need these two? If you are a business owner who has been wondering this then you have arrived at the right place. Here, we will tell you everything about warehouse, warehousing, and also help you decide whether your business needs it.
What Is The Meaning of Warehouse?
A warehouse is a facility for storing goods. It is used by manufacturers, importers, wholesalers,
exporters, transport businesses, etc. They are usually situated in industrial parks on the outskirts of cities, towns, or villages.
Warehouses are equipped with storage racks, handling equipment and personnel, and management resources.
Warehouses generally have loading docks to load and unload goods from trucks. Sometimes loading and unloading of goods happen directly at railways, airports, or seaports. Cranes and forklifts are also available to move goods which are normally placed on ISO standard pallets that are loaded into pallet racks.
Stored goods typically contain any raw materials, packing materials, spare parts, components, or other finished goods that are associated with agriculture, manufacturing, and production. We hope this cleared your doubts about what is warehouse.
What Is Warehousing?
While a warehouse is a place where you store all your goods, warehousing consists of processes that go inside a warehouse.
Everything right from receiving shipments, managing the inventory, knowing which items are in stock, out of stock, ensuring the safety of the products to sending out the products to customers is involved under the concept of warehousing. Using different processes and techniques, warehousing takes care of a lot of things.
While managing a warehouse might seem like an easy task, in reality, numerous things need to be considered when it comes to the management of a warehouse. So, it doesn’t just end at renting out a space for storing your goods.
A lot of businesses trust experts like NimbusPost to take care of their warehousing and shipping. Outsourcing warehousing and shipping to a third-party logistics company has numerous benefits. You don’t just have one less thing to worry about but all your shipping-related tasks are perfectly taken care of without any hassles.
However, let us first take a look at whether your business needs a warehouse and if yes, then why does it need one.
Does Your Business Really Need A Warehouse?
Warehousing Services Are For Everyone
If your business deals with e-commerce, you are sure to highly benefit from a warehouse and its services.
You might have a small business at the moment but you may have planned on expanding it in the future. In such a case, your orders are bound to grow and you are bound to need more storage space.
Seasonal Production
Certain products are only produced in a certain season. Similarly, certain products only get sold during a particular season, for example, umbrellas.
If your business deals with such seasonal products then it is essential that you get a warehouse. With a warehouse, you can store the products during the off-season and sell them when the season is right. In the case of products that are available only during a particular time of the year, you can use your warehouse to store them and then sell such products throughout the year.
Non-Stop Production
If your business is continually producing goods then you must have a warehouse. It is essential for you not just to store the produced goods but also the raw materials required for it. In the case of a business that requires non-stop production, a warehouse is a must.
With your raw materials safely stored, you can ensure non-stop production no matter what.
Price Consistency
Another aspect that having a warehouse ensures is the consistency of price. Any sort of a shortage in the market leads to increased prices and vice versa. So, to maintain the consistency of the goods, a warehouse plays an important role.
Having a warehouse will help in ensuring that there is adequate stock at all times.
Bulk Production
There are several businesses that bulk produce their goods due to several reasons. If your business also involves bulk producing then you really need to consider getting a warehouse for obvious reasons.
What does Will A Logistics Company do For You?
Apart from the above, if you are looking to get the following services for your business then you really need to get warehousing services and of course, a warehouse.
Product Order Fulfilment
The logistics partner that you hire will handle all your product orders. Everything right from accepting shipments, adding that to inventory, accepting orders, removing products from inventory, placing them into boxes to shipping them to the customer will be handled. If you are looking for someone to do this for you, you certainly need a warehouse and its services.
E-commerce Maintenance
Keeping track of all your products can be quite a task at times. It is always beneficial if someone takes care of it for you. Most companies will also integrate your retail, e-commerce as well as warehouse inventories so that it is easy to keep track of everything.
Returns
It is definitely not fun to get any returned orders but the good part here is that the logistics partner will take care of this too.
Here, we talked about what is warehouse, what is warehousing, and what it will do for you. We hope that this guide helped you decide whether or not you need to have a warehouse for your business.
