Is Your Business Ready for Public Warehousing?

It’s a quandary that many businesses of all types and sizes face at some point in time – the need for more space while operating with limited resources and capital. It’s the point where using outsourced services might be a worthwhile consideration. Nowhere is this more in practice than with supply chain management and logistics. For diverse reasons that range from outgrowing a facility to controlling costs, more and more companies are turning to public warehousing to handle inventory storage, distribution and other logistics. Your business also might be better served by a public warehouse, especially if any of these circumstances are evident.

Telltale Signs Your Business Could Use Public Warehousing

Businesses that turn to public warehouses all have one or more of the following situations in common. If your company is experiencing any of these circumstances, it’s a sign that your business is ready for offsite warehousing.

• You’re a growing business looking for more space without changing your existing infrastructure.
• You’re a new business with no space for storing and distributing your products.
• Sales have increased, yet you’re not confident the upward trend will continue in future years to invest in a larger facility.
• Your business has seasonal increases in inventory that put a strain on your current infrastructure and operations.
• You’re borrowing staff from other departments to handle inventory, shipping and receiving and other logistics duties.
• You’re unable to add new product lines because you’ve run out of space in your existing building.
• You’re ready to expand internationally or into a wider market, but don’t have the infrastructure to support it.

What Public Warehousing Offers

A public storage warehouse offers long, short, or fixed term storage to businesses. These facilities store all types of goods, such as raw materials, finished goods and machinery, and provide the required essentials, like docks, forklifts, racks and around the clock security. A public warehouse acts as an extension of your company, providing a solution that makes good business sense for companies that don’t have the staff, space, information technology, or time to manage storage and/or the movement of inventory.

Besides storage, many public warehouses offer a wide range of complementing services at affordable rates. For example, although Brendamour Warehousing, Distribution & Services specializes in public warehousing, the Ohio warehouse also offers other value-added services, such as computerized inventory; fulfillment and order processing; stock rotation; custom packing and labeling; and all phases of distribution, from shipping and local deliveries to import and export services. You pick and choose which services you need and only pay for those services you use.

Advantages of a Public Warehouse

Cost-benefit analysis shows that third-party logistics providers deliver significant savings to businesses. Immediate cost savings are realized since leasing space in a public warehouse is more economical than building an extension on a current location or moving to a larger facility. But public storage warehousing also eliminates the following major costs to companies:

• Leasing or purchasing of additional storage units or buildings,
• Investing in inventory management systems,
• Purchasing or leasing warehouse equipment and maintenance contracts,
• Hiring and training additional staff,
• Paying taxes on owning additional property.

Using public warehousing also allows businesses to:

• Lower shipping costs since warehouses do greater volumes of shipping and can take advantage of consolidated freight rates.
• Free up storage space at their existing facility.
• Have a better handle on inventory management so they can better serve their customers in supply and demand situations.
• Streamline their supply chain management with storage and shipping done in one centralized location.
• Focus on the core areas of their business and allocate the applicable resources to them.

Your business will show signs it’s ready for a public warehouse arrangement. By recognizing them and taking immediate action, you’ll boost your bottom line and stay on target for growing a successful company.