Selecting a warehouse can be an overwhelming and confusing experience. Your company likely has very specific warehousing needs, and it can be difficult to get past all the complicated lingo and sales pitches in order to discern which warehouses are actually a good fit for your business. Below, we outline 1-5 of the ten most important considerations you should think about when choosing a warehouse.

Location: Consider the current shipping locations of your suppliers, as well as the delivery locations you’re arranging for customers. Where are most of those deliveries being made? Are your warehouses located in the optimal zones to minimize the costs for both your company and your client?

Access: Any public warehouse you’re thinking about contracting or considering as a major distribution center will need to be easily accessible from major highway arteries. Additionally, if you’ll be importing or exporting a great deal of material, they should also be close to major port locations with strengths aligned with your product type.

Client Profile: Do you recognize any of their clients? On average, how much square footage do each of those clients occupy? If they have 50 customers who only occupy a small amount of their space, that could be a warning sign that the warehouse doesn’t have the experience to attract larger companies with more sophisticated requirements to command larger square footage utilization.

Storage Area: Will their storage area provide the capacity you require? It’s important to not only ask about their storage area, but more specifically, what is presently available to you. Do they anticipate any storage becoming available in the future in order to accommodate your growth?

Association Memberships: Are they active members of any well-known associations that can lend an extra bit of credibility to their operations? If they demonstrate their commitment to being card-carrying members of the IWLA (International Warehouse Logistics Association), for example, that shows they are interested in presenting themselves among groups of their peers, learning, gaining resources for improvement, and demonstrating their value over time.

It’s clear that choosing a warehouse requires very careful consideration and a scrutinizing examination of all your needs. If you’re still overwhelmed, we can help! Here at Trinity, a group of special-solutions experts known as our Design Solutions team have loads of expertise in warehousing and so much more. If you’re interested in teaming up with us to figure out the best solution for your business, you can get in touch by clicking here.

UPDATE
Check out part 2 of this blog, outlining factors 6-10, here!