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Completing an annual inventory audit or your warehouse may seem like a daunting task, however, this deep dive into the current financial situation of your business is essential.

It is important that every year the warehouse of every company should undergo an inventory audit.

But exactly what is an inventory audit and how do you carry one out?

In this article, we’ll take a look at the audit procedures for inventory. Read on to find out more.

What Is an Inventory Audit?

An inventory audit is a procedure that compares financial records, inventory records, and involves a physical count of all goods that a company is in possession of.

An inventory audit can be a simple spot check involving a physical comparison of stock and inventory records, or it could be a full audit carried out by a third-party.

There are several types of common audit procedures including cutoff analysis, physical inventory count, ABC analysis, and many more. We’ll take a look at these in detail later.

Should You Hire an External Inventory Audit Specialist?

You don’t have to hire an external auditor or inventory audit specialist to carry out the procedure; however, it does help.

Hiring an external auditor will ensure that the count is carried out by independent and impartial people. By doing this, there is no risk of anyone intentionally misreporting figures.

Why Is It Important to Carry Out an Inventory Audit in Your Warehouse?

Having an effective inventory management system in place will help you to speed up your inventory auditing process. The better your system, the quicker your audits will take meaning less disruption to your business. Audits can be less frequent and less complicated with the right system in place.

Having a system that tracks your stock figures in real-time, rather than a static system such as a spreadsheet of stock figures will mean that your inventory will be more likely to be accurate.

Having the right systems in place will help you with many of the major objectives of your inventory audit. These objectives may include the following.

Calculating Profits

It is essential that you carry out inventory audits to calculate your profits. The accuracy in your companies inventory account will determine your bottom line.

Carrying out regular audits will help you to reduce shrinkage and identify any slow-moving items of stock that may be taking up valuable space.

Accurate Budgeting

You need to have an accurate method of tracking the value of your inventory so that you can budget for the next consignment that you need to buy. An inventory audit can help you to budget with greater accuracy as it will let you know exactly how fast you’re selling through specific lines.

Taking this deep dive into your inventory will also let you know how much safety stock you should hold.

Bring Inefficiency to Account

Carrying out an inventory audit will help you to identify inefficiency. The inventory process can hello you to identify which lines are repeatedly stocking out and causing lost sales. They can also help you to identify inefficiencies relating to the way you store your products.

What Might an Inventory Audit Uncover?

When carrying out an audit, you will bring to light any discrepancies. These can then be adjusted and rectified. It is important that you do this as stock loss needs to be measured as part of your end of year financial record keeping.

You may uncover the following:

Damaged or out of date items which cannot be sold
Obsolete items that you no longer stock
Discrepancies where you have more stock than expected
Discrepancies where you have less stock than expected

Once all of these things are brought to light, you should record the discrepancies and stock which need writing off and correct your inventory records.

Let’s look at some of the different procedures that you might use when carrying out an audit.

Cutoff Analysis

A cutoff analysis is where you pause operations during the inventory. This means holding off from receiving stock or shipping items. Usually, during this period, any stock that is received is held in a separate area and not counted.

By not handling stock, you can be sure that nothing goes unaccounted for.

Physical Inventory Count

A physical inventory count is designed to make sure that the stock records that you have on your system match up with the physical stock.

To help track the count automatically, you may use product barcodes and barcode scanners.

You should have a process of double-counting any areas where there are discrepancies. You should also spot check counters by double-counting to ensure accuracy.

ABC Analysis

If you stock items that range in value, you may want to use ABC analysis. This is where you group items of different values and volumes together. For instance, you may group all of your high-value (“A” products), mid-value (“B” products), and low-value (“C” products).

By grouping your products in this way, you’ll make it easier for an auditor to focus on the high-value inventory items.

Reconciling Items

If you find any discrepancies while carrying out your inventory audit, then in addition to reconciling each variance, you may want to do a full audit trail investigation to find out the root cause of the problem.

You may notice that there are certain error-prone SKUs that crop up repeatedly. Identifying these will allow you to keep an eye and tighter control over them in the future.

Carrying Out Your Inventory Audit

Carrying out an inventory audit may be a time-consuming task, however, it is worthwhile. The actual process of counting the stock and comparing it to the records is simple. But carrying out the necessary follow-up investigations into problematic SKUs may require more effort.

If you’re looking for a warehousing solution for your business that is efficient, get in touch today. We’ll provide you with a free quote and let you know how we can meet your needs.

E-commerce is booming. According to Emarketer, the global retail market will exceed $25 trillion in 2019.

We live in an age where you can run a business successfully from the comfort of your home office. You can serve customers across the country and even across the globe with just a few strokes of a keyboard.

Our resources to reach the world also limit our ability to store and deliver our products though. If your business is just you and your computer, you need help moving the product from you to your customers.

Keep reading to learn about how outsourcing your last-mile delivery will make your business even better.

What Is Last-Mile Delivery?

“Last-mile delivery” came from telecommunications companies and not Amazon. Telecommunications engineers referred to the distance from the ISP to the customer’s location, be it a home or office, as the last mile, even if it spanned a few miles or less than a mile.

Nearly all businesses now use the term to refer to the distance between the delivery hub and the customer. So when you order a package, the last mile is not the distance from the warehouse in Portland to your home in Norfolk. It’s the distance from the distribution hub down the road to your front door.

Last-mile delivery services have one objective: deliver that package to the customer as quickly as possible. That’s their business. They serve both the customer and the business by filling a gap.

Outsourcing Makes Your Business Better

You can take your business from better to best by outsourcing your door-to-door services. This works especially well if you’re in the in-between stage of being small enough to not hire another individual to do your deliveries but big enough that you can no longer do them yourself.

Here are the ways outsourcing last-mile delivery can benefit you.

You Take Advantage of Technology

You know your business. You understand how to make what you make or do what you do. But you do not always understand the technology that can help streamline your business.

When you outsource the last-mile delivery, you can take advantage of all of the technology that helps your product make its way to your customers’ doorsteps quickly. You do not have to understand how the company moves it quickly or tracks it. You just take advantage of it.

If you’re looking to outsource any part of your business, then last-mile service makes the most sense. Your customers will notice immediately that you have fast and reliable service.

You can take advantage of all of the apps that last-mile delivery services use as well. Last-mile delivery services can customize an app specifically for your company that mainstreams delivery.

You Save Money and Time

If you deliver your own products, you understand the cost and time involved with delivery. You have to pay for fuel and car maintenance.

As your business grows, you’ll have to make big decisions. You’ll need to either hire extra workers to produce your product or hire a driver to deliver your products. If you hire a driver, you still carry the liability of a driver using your vehicle, and you still must pay for fuel.

If you outsource your last-mile delivery service, you’ll ultimately save money and time. You can focus on making your product amazing and not think about traffic patterns.

You also don’t have to worry about payroll and delivery deadlines. You don’t have to wonder if a driver is taking care of your car. You can just focus on your product while the delivery service focuses on their specialty.

You Can Track Your Orders

If you take care of your customers, they’ll stay loyal to your brand. An effective last-mile delivery service will have tracking services for your package. Your customers will be able to see exactly where their package is.

You won’t have to incur the cost for a tracking service since the last-mile delivery service will care for this. You’ll pay for the delivery service, and you’ll make your customers happier.

Customers care about real-time tracking. Recent studies indicate that 31% of customers care about real-time tracking.

You’re Insured

A good courier service will have insurance for your packages. They’ll cover it if a package is lost.

This removes your liability once the package leaves your possession. Insurance indicates you can trust the last-mile delivery service.

You Improve Customer Service

We live in an on-demand world. We can order a pizza and say when we want it done. Because of the commonality of on-demand services, customers are more demanding than ever.

The younger the customer, the more the demand. Studies are showing that approximately 56% of online consumers ages 18-34 years expect same-day delivery. As a result, the majority of consumers are willing to pay extra for same-day service.

As your business grows, you cannot offer same-day service consistently. You need a last-mile delivery service to ensure that your package arrives when you say it will.

Improving customer service means increasing the chances of brand loyalty. In short, when you serve your customers well by providing tracking, same-day delivery, and modern delivery technology, your customers will keep coming back and will recommend you.

Use Outsource as a Resource

Outsourcing is a good thing. It means your business is growing and you’re making wise decisions for your business.

When you outsource, you’ll ultimately save money and time. You’ll also show your customers you care because you’re allowing someone else to make your business even better.

For all of your last-mile delivery services, contact us.

Parcel delivery is a huge, competitive industry. The total number of parcels distributed around the world each year is 9.84 billion. Finding the best final mile delivery provider to give you a competitive advantage is tough.

Getting final mile delivery can help streamline your business process. Considering this service? Check out these questions to ask your final mile provider.

What is Final Mile Delivery?

Final mile delivery is a specialized aspect of logistics. It involves the shipping of goods from a distribution hub to their final destination. Very often, the final destination is somebody’s home or an office.

The last mile might not be literally a distance of a mile. It might be more. The key is that it is the final part of the package’s journey.

Sometimes a package will have been carried by multiple delivery services. It may have been picked up from source and taken to a hub at which it is consolidated with other packages. It is then delivered to another hub from which the last mile delivery specialist takes it on to the customer.

The phenomenon of last-mile delivery has arisen since on-line and bricks and mortar retailers have partnered with logistics specialists to provide home delivery. E-commerce requires home delivery because these retailers don’t have stores where customers can go to pick up goods. Conventional retailers have responded to e-commerce competition by adopting omnichannel approaches including home delivery.

In this competitive market, the quality of all aspects of service delivery is one of the ways customers discriminate between retailers. A great fulfillment operation can be the difference between success and failure. Customers have stopped making any distinction between channels and instead are interested in great customer experience.

Who is the best final mile carrier for your customers? Here are some questions you should ask?

1. Are You Financially Sound?

It seems like everybody can set themselves up as a final mile delivery provider. You just need a van.

If it’s easy to set up a final mile delivery service of sorts, it’s easy for it to go out of business too. This leaves you and your customers high and dry.

You should ask for reassurance about the financial resilience of the company. Do they have a track record and what capability do they have to take on your business without over-reaching themselves in the future?

2. What Resources Do You Have?

A key capability you need from a final mile carrier is their capacity to handle demand changes. Can they flex up and down as demand changes? One way of understanding this capacity is to learn about what resources they have.

Resources might include vehicles, distribution centers, and people. Customers value the speed of delivery. Your chosen final mile delivery provider has to be able to meet their expectations at all times.

3. What Makes You Great at Home Delivery?

There are some unique aspects to final mile delivery that are not necessarily part of the skill set of other carriers. What sets your prospective carrier apart from the rest.

One phenomenon that has developed alongside home delivery is expedited delivery. Being quicker than standard delivery is an added value. Can your prospective carrier provide this?

The unique aspect of final mile carriers is that they meet your customers. That personal contact may be the only human contact the customer receives along the whole customer service journey. How equipped are they to meet or exceed the expectations of your customers?

Contact with customers might be in their homes. Your customers may expect more than a simple delivery drop. Interpersonal skills, courtesy, and respect for someone’s home are all needed.

4. What Visibility Can You Give Me?

Your customers may want to know where their package is at any time. “When will it arrive?”, is a common question. Ask what visibility of the package journey will the carrier be able to give you on the final leg of its journey.

Home delivery has a greater demand for visibility than other deliveries. Customers are not necessarily available at all times to receive a delivery. There’s an element of coordination needed to meet their needs.

Tracking of deliveries, as well as estimated delivery times, helps you and your customer. It’s also important to know if a parcel has been delivered. Your visibility of this helps resolve customer disputes, performance measurement, and supplier management.

5. How Do You Use Technology?

It’s one thing to provide visibility of the parcel journey. It’s another to make use of the information to drive performance improvement. Ask how the carrier uses technology to add value.

Integration with traffic information, routing applications, and demand forecasting are among the ways in which a technology-enabled carrier can reduce costs and improve their service.

6. What Customer Service Do You Provide?

A final mile delivery provider must take responsibility for the quality of the customer service they provide. Some poorer providers do no more than pick up and drop a parcel. The best ones recognize they deliver your brand as well as the parcel.

Your customer may regard the carrier as the first line of your customer service. How will your carrier respond to the questions and concerns raised by your customer?

Can the final mile delivery provider provide some added services? Furniture deliveries may need unpacking and packaging removing. A new washing machine delivery may mean there’s an old washing machine to remove.

Added value service such as delivery into the customer’s home, unpacking, assembly and removing old goods can make all the difference to your customers. Poor service here can undo all your good marketing, buying, and logistics. It can also be expensive in terms of customer complaints, online reviews, and poor reputation.

7. Is Your Business Sustainable?

Logistics is an important aspect of your business’s impact on the environment. You may have made commitments to your stakeholders about your environmental performance and your customers almost certainly have expectations too.

A final mile carrier is part of your supply chain and so you may want to understand their environmental credentials. How are they working to reduce their carbon footprint? What are they doing about controlling waste, energy use, and improving sustainability?

Ask Questions

It’s important to ask these questions of a prospective carrier. Don’t expect that all carriers will be equally capable. The right final mile delivery partner might be your competitive advantage.

To learn more about last-mile transportation, click here.

As a responsible business owner, your top priority is the company’s bottom line. For that reason, you’ve determined that your business makes the most of its investments. When it comes to proper inventory management, there’s no exception.

The good news, though, is that you’ve come to the right place by reading this article. Detailed below are today’s top small business inventory management tips. By following that guidance, you’ll increase your business’s profit margins in no time.

After all, there are a lot of small businesses around that might be your competition. Consider the following statistic reported by the United States Small Business Administration. It indicates that as of the year 2018, over 99% of businesses throughout the country were small businesses.

In other words, you need to put in the effort to stay ahead of any local competitors. Keep reading to learn how your inventory management strategies could meet that need.

Start By Evaluating Your Needs and Available Budget

The first thing to consider is what expectations you actually have for your inventory management. For one thing, sensible workplace design is going to be in your best interest.

Before you get started rearranging everything, though, take a look at your budget. If you truly want to make the most of your inventory management, you’ll need to make some investments. It’s ideal that you’re willing to spend some money on inventory management software, for example.

In addition, are there other purchases you need to buy, such as shelving? Any organizational investments are going to be worthwhile. That way, you and your employees know where everything is at all times.

Get Your Workplace Organized

Speaking of your workplace area, it’s wise to keep it organized as much as possible. Start by taking out any unessential items in the area. There’s no need to keep clutter and trash in the area, for one thing.

Then, establish a centralized location for your recycling and trash bins. As a result, the trash in your workplace should all filter to those designated bins.

It’s also a smart move to label and tag everything in your business’s workplace. This is even true of your individual inventory products.

As mentioned above, be willing to invest in organizational tools like shelves and a label maker, if needed. Don’t cut corners when it comes to ensuring you’re making the most of workplace productivity. The detailed organization is one way to establish a more efficient inventory management system.

It’s important that you continue to keep your workplace clean and free of clutter in the future, too. For more detailed specifics, check out this article on e-commerce warehousing best practices.

Consider Investing in an Inventory Management Software Solution

It’s no secret that we’re living in the modern Digital Era. It seems as though technology and the Internet reign supreme over our daily lives – including our professional lives.

It’s fortunate, then, that businesses of all industries have learned to take advantage of this digital marketplace. In fact, throughout the world, the business automation market generated over $5 billion in sales in 2016. In other words, it’s time for your small business to get on board.

That’s why it’s worth taking a look at inventory management software solutions available. These systems help businesses of all sizes track and optimize their inventory processes. This is of particular benefit to those small businesses that ship products to consumers on a regular basis.

Do your research to see how inventory management software can help you. By investing in such a solution, you’re enhancing accuracy and efficiency in your business’s inventory management. That automated attention to detail, in the long run, is going to be an invaluable asset.

In addition, inventory management software is going to generate a ton of data for your small business. That way, you can track and measure that analytic data to improve operations over time. It’ll be up to you, though, to make the most of those analytic reports for your small business.

Only Trust Reputable Shipping Solutions for Your Orders

One of the most significant inventory management strategies is to ensure your shipping process is optimized. Your customers expect their orders to be delivered in a timely and secure manner, after all. That’s why it’s worthwhile to only trust a reputable shipping solution provider.

Eco-Friendly Small Business Inventory Management Tips

These days, small business brands cultivate a positive reputation if they prioritize sustainable practices. For that reason, don’t underestimate the value of investing in eco-friendly inventory management strategies.

One example is to purchase easy-to-recycle packaging materials. Even small businesses like yours make an impact on the environment when they ship their products on a regular basis. Make that impact a positive one by reducing waste of your packaging materials.

Plus, a proper inventory management software solution is an eco-friendly strategy. That’s because the alternative is to track everything on pen and paper. By reducing the use of those materials, a high-quality software solution can provide more than one benefit to your business.

Invest in a Reliable Courrier Service to Ship Your Inventory

At this point in the article, you have a thorough understanding of today’s best small business inventory management tips. There’s no need to cut corners when it comes to improving your business’s operations. You deserve the peace of mind that comes from an organized and profitable business.

That’s why you’ll take the above guidelines seriously. There are a lot of ins and outs to navigate when it comes to proper inventory management practices. For one thing, you need to establish an optimized solution for shipping your products.

In fact, that’s where we can come into play. We’re here to provide clients like you with today’s latest and greatest courier services available. If you need to ship your inventory to customers, look no further for a reliable solution.

We encourage you to browse through the rest of our website. On it, you’ll find a variety of ways our courier services can help establish your business as a reputable one in your niche market. To start, check out more information about our courier and warehousing services today.

The insurgence of online shopping has forever changed our experience with buying, selling, and advertising. If you follow industry news, it shouldn’t surprise you that Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, is worth over 150 billion dollars, mostly thanks to online commerce.

As this industry continues to grow and change our lives in different ways, the infrastructure required to support it also evolves. You may have heard of something called a fulfillment center.

But do you know the difference between warehouse and fulfillment services? Keep reading to learn everything you’ve ever wanted to know!

The Lure of Online Shopping

It seems like magic. You type some words and press some buttons on your computer or mobile device and -voilá- your clothing, video games, groceries, or whatever you ordered just appears at your door. Nothing beats it.

No more driving around wasting precious fuel and time. Forget about looking for parking and waiting in line at the mall. Who has time for any of that?

Thankfully, we can easily buy and sell whatever we need thanks to the multiple websites that make this possible. But let’s look at the people that truly make this industry tick.

What Makes It Possible?

Like all industries, online retail companies rely on real people to make things work. This includes drivers, package handlers, clerks, accountants, and many other types of laborers.

In contrast to brick and mortar stores, there is less a need for salespersons since the goods are advertised and sold on a website. However, there is a great need for workers to cover logistics. Many of these work at places called fulfillment centers.

What Are Fulfillment Centers?

If you’re unfamiliar with the term, you would be forgiven for thinking that they are places where Taoist monks obtain enlightenment or something along those lines.

However, online orders are what is being fulfilled here. Most goods that are purchased online likely came through one of these places to be packaged and then shipped towards their final destinations. Millions of dollars of products pass through these centers.

Amazon alone accounts for about 75 of these centers across North America. It takes well over 100,000 people to operate these centers. They account for the vast majority of all the people employed by Amazon.

Warehousing and Fulfillment Centers

The truth of the matter is, no matter how sophisticated the technology used by the online retail industry is, there is always going to be a need for storage and logistics.

Is a fulfillment center just a fancy way of saying ‘warehouse’? Although they share certain similarities, they do not serve exactly the same purpose. Let’s take a look at their origins and what it is that sets them apart from common warehouses.

History

Online shopping really began to catch on amongst the general public towards the end of the 90s and the early 2000s. However, online commerce truly began much earlier.

Towards the end of the 80s, industry movers realized the need for packing and distribution centers to deal with the demand for such a rapidly growing industry.

Being part of a new and innovative industry, it became apparent that a new phrase would be appropriate to most accurately describe it. Since it was a place where orders were fulfilled, ‘fulfillment center’ made sense and quickly caught on throughout North America.

Warehousing Solutions

Many companies offer what is known as product warehousing solutions. When large amounts of good and/or material needs to be stored for longer periods of time, it makes sense to utilize the services of a warehouse.

Companies often pay to lease space in a warehouse. This could be measured in square footage or by the number of containers required.

Retailers that utilize these services can choose to keep a certain portion of there inventory in these types of spaces and another part of it in their shop. They can always add or take away from the storage.

How Are Warehouses and Fulfillment Centers Different?

At first glance, they appear to be large buildings filled with people moving and storing big containers and boxes. They are similar in that sense. They are both used to accommodate massive amounts of goods and equipment.

The main difference between warehousing and fulfillment services is that the latter is constantly mobilizing the goods it handles. Also, fulfillment centers have to deal with endless returns.

This means that, in a fulfillment center, the products are not meant to be stored for extended periods of time. This is because their shelves are always being stocked and then shipped to the customers.

How Do Fulfillment Centers Work?

There is currently a massive demand for fulfillment services. This requires a large number of resources, technology, and, most importantly, plenty of people that can make everything possible.

It is a constantly evolving industry that continues to advance along with other fields. Robots have often been used and experts speculate they will revolutionize the industry.

They say it takes a village to deliver a package. The centers have to work with people in many other industries. They depend on reliable courier services to ensure that the products make it from the centers to wherever they need to go.

Order With Confidence!

Fulfillment centers and warehouses are both vital to the world of commerce. The way we use the internet continues to evolve, but the need for these types of services will remain. However, it is important to know that a fulfillment center is actually quite different from a warehouse.

Looking for a courier service that delivers? Get in touch with us to learn more!

Warehouse location plays a pivotal role in a modern business strategy.

It’s a sort of a make-or-break decision that profoundly impacts all aspect of your operations. Nowadays, pressures on business supply chains have never been greater. What is at stake is your ability to serve customers profitably and efficiently.

Therefore, you have a lot of ground to cover. In other words, you would be wise to plan and strategize ahead of time, according to clear selection criteria.

After all, there’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all solution. Warehouse location must match your unique needs and set you up for growth and expansion.

Here are some key areas to focus on in order to get the most bang for your buck.

Think in Terms of Customer Proximity

The first thing to do is ponder your market base.

Perform detailed research on existing or potential customers. Figure out location(s) that can serve as reliable sources of business. Being close to these nexuses shortens delivery times and cuts shipping costs.

This is to say the ideal location is close to as many of your customers as possible. You might even have a chance to provide coveted same-day delivery.

But, it’s important to go beyond back-of-the-envelope calculations. Get serious with math and work out the exact transpiration cost from a warehouse to customer addresses.

At the same time, see to it you’re not too close to neighbors, even if they are your customers. Warehouses can be quite noisy and discharge various emissions. The trick is to maximize your responsiveness without outstaying your welcome.

A Matter of Workforce Accessibility

Workforce availability is another vital aspect we cannot stress enough.

Geographical locations aren’t created equal when it comes to the presence of skilled workers. The price of hiring and covering salaries could also vary depending on laws of supply and demand. Moreover, competing businesses hamper your ability to attract and retain people.

These are no meager factor in terms of their influence on overall business costs. They also have an effect on retention and turnover rates.

So, develop a deeper understanding of the local demographics. Examine education and income levels. Government websites should provide enough details on these data points.

The main goal is to confirm supply meets the objective of offering on-time delivery. If you want to keep the wheels turning 24/7, this could be a real challenge.

Connectedness to Other Services

Your warehouse is part of a broader service and linkage ecosystem.

For instance, being near the carrier, supplier, and manufacturing facilitates is highly beneficial. It can supercharge the shipping and transportation processes. Things become much easier and more convenient for everyone, including your customers.

This time around, you need to calculate transpiration costs from service facilities to your warehouse. If you can afford it, go for an all-encompassing location that enhances the supply chain.

Notice easy access to roads, exit ramps, and highways with proper signage add to the potential value of location. This component boosts productivity and allows you to do a better job at serving consumers.

In case the trucking is your primary mode of transportation, you stand even more to gain. You can optimize fuel consumption, lower the risk of accidents, and minimize time waste.

Storage Capacity and Building Features

Next, it’s time to assess the physical premises.

First off, factor in any special accommodations you require for products. This is crucial when storing toxic, flammable, food, and fragile items. They involve strict safety standards and storage specifications.

It goes without saying you don’t want to ever compromise on priorities like these.

Secondly, check out build parameters, as well as the layout and flow of the warehouse. When it comes to specific features, they include rail sliding, turning lanes, trans-loading, etc.

Don’t overlook internet and connection services either. Examine general availability, as well as speed and link type.

Thirdly, think about what type of storage makes the most sense—racked, trailer, or bulked. Similarly, you may have to choose between chemical/foam systems and water-based solutions. Take your time to go over these dilemmas and prioritize solid inventory control.

Keeping Up with Evolving Business Needs

Moving on, it’s preferable to find spacious enough warehouse for the long haul.

Namely, the facility should accommodate your needs now and in the future. Quickly outgrowing it faces you with logistics nightmare and unnecessary costs. Therefore, evaluate projected growth and compare it against available square footage.

While at it, investigate whether you have enough room around the facility for expansion. This aspect gives the location much more longevity.

Just to stay on the safe side, you can opt for a lease/rental contract with flexible storage options. One common mistake to avoid is overestimating your capacities. Your business may occasionally actually shrink and leave you with giant overheads with little to show for.

In the wake of this scenario, seasonal warehousing arrangements save the day. The takeaway is clear: never to lock yourself in a deal that hurts your agility and adaptability.

Grasping the Full Financial Picture

Lastly, expenditures always have their place on the list of concerns.

Rental rates and taxes are the most obvious example of how your decision matters a great deal. In general, rates depend on square footage and months of lease. That being said, landlords can decide to go above and beneath the market average.

They may also fail to disclose the fact that utilities aren’t overly energy-efficient. So, investigate their availability and cost yourself.

Depending on the type of warehouse, you’re more dependent on some utilities than others. Refrigerated buildings, for example, require more electricity and water. In any event, be wary of anything that inflates operating costs.

To mitigate the financial blow on your budget, keep an eye on local government tax incentives and special programs

They either give you a nice boost or discourage the investment altogether.

Warehouse Location: Achieving Success by Design

Picking a suitable warehouse location must never be aforethought.

It calls for extensive planning and research— these activities pay immense dividends in the long run.

First off, take into account the customer base, overheads and storage requirements. Try to be close to the manufacturing location and secure skilled workforce.

This list is not all-inclusive, but it’s a great starting point.

Another crucial thing to remember is you might not be able to maximize each element. It usually comes down to trade-off and balance between different moving parts. But, you can come close to the ideal solution and avoid most of the headaches.

If you want to get ahead of the game, feel free to check out our services. We offer top-notch delivery, warehousing, and logistics services to our clients.

Have you finally run out of space?

For reasons unknown, it’s hard for businesses to avoid clutter in the office. There just never seems to be enough of that precious thing called warehouse space.

How many times have you walked into a storage room that’s full of boxes of files and old computer parts that no one’s needed in years? It’s an epidemic.

Maybe you run a manufacturing business and you’re drowning in overstock waiting to be purchased and shipped out.

What we’re trying to say is that it’s normal to be short on room. The expenses of moving to a larger space can be enough to sink a small business and if you’re growing steadily, this probably results in a lot of clutter around your office and warehouse.

We’re here to tell you that there’s help available. With on-demand long and short-term warehousing, you can have the best of both worlds.

Here are 7 reasons why.

1. Erase Clutter

By investing in temporary warehouse space, you can allow your business to get back to doing what it’s best at, functioning as an office. If your current building is operating as your headquarters and your warehouse space, then you can’t work as efficiently as you could otherwise.

Warehouse space will allow you to keep the office side and the warehouse side separate. Have one location that you run your operations out of and another that acts as a storage space for all of your products.

You can also use a temp storage space to keep extra office supplies out of sight while you figure out what to do with them. No one likes to work in an environment that feels like an office version of “Hoarders”. If you’ve got a lot of extra junk laying around, move it to off-site storage and make your employees happier.

2. Helps With Moves

Similarly, warehouse space can help you during big moves when you’re still figuring out how to optimize your new office’s functionality. It can be a pain to move an entire office from one space to another.

Moving supplies that are less integral to the operation of your business into storage and gradually removing them is a much more effective way to go about a large-scale move.

Courier companies often offer services that will help you transport your supplies from one office to another, at the same time offering warehouse support for your extra stuff.

3. Warehouse Space For Overstock

If you manufacture products, you can quickly find yourself running out of space of your own. By renting a storage space, you can alleviate the limitations of your own warehouse or office.

Doing this effectively gives your business some room to operate and grow. It can be difficult to feel like your business is moving forward when you have physical limitations within your office. Freeing up space is as beneficial to your company’s collective psyche as it is to your physical day-to-day operation.

At Chicago Messenger, we offer warehousing, store and ship, and fulfillment for your stock.

4. Fulfillment

One of the incredible benefits of storing your product at Chicago Messenger’s warehouse facilities is our store and ship and fulfillment services. If you don’t know what fulfillment services are, then you’ve been missing out.

With our fulfillment services, you’ll never have to worry about shipping again. The warehousing service stores your products for you, while the fulfillment services take over all of your order picking and shipping needs.

Instead of you requesting an item from us or driving to the storage facility to pick an order, just leave it to the fulfillment team. They integrate with your team to pick, pack, and ship items for you.

5. Expand Reach with Lower Cost

Renting a temporary storage space is much cheaper than buying a larger space of your own. A small monthly fee allows you to have the best of both worlds. It will allow you to expand your reach without breaking the bank.

If you were to purchase space in a warehouse, you’ll have the added headache of providing upkeep and staffing the place. With a rental, it’s all taken care of for you, staff and all.

Expand your reach without the high-risk move of purchasing a new facility. Grow at your own pace.

6. Flexibility

Flexibility is key with businesses that experience ebbs and flows throughout the fiscal year. Renting a monthly storage space gives you a no-commitment space that you can keep during peak times and take off the books during slow periods.

This is hugely beneficial in certain manufacturing industries that pick up rapidly around holidays and grind to a halt during the summer months. When you rent, your mind will be at ease knowing that you can remove the cost of your storage space when you don’t need it.

7. New Resources

Using a third-party storage facility gives you the opportunity to use state of the art technology to organize your stock. Many new warehouses possess sophisticated warehouse management systems with automated inventory, tracking, order fulfillment, and customized racking.

Often, these businesses will also have well-trained staff to help you along in the process of organizing your product. The safe handling and proper organization of your product should be at the forefront of the services provided by the storage facility.

With a temporary storage rental, you get all of these things included in your monthly fee, giving you incredible resources at an affordable price.

Book Your Warehouse Space Today

If you think that your business would benefit from a temporary warehouse space rental, then book with Chicago Messenger today. We’ll work with your needs to provide the best warehousing service possible for your company.

The advantages of having extra space are undeniable. Your office will look better, your employees will feel better, and operations will run smoothly. Check out our services page to find out what we offer and contact us to obtain a quote as soon as possible.

For more articles on how to store and ship your products, visit our blog.

If your company is interested in renting warehouse space right now, one of the things you’re going to learn is that it’s not easy to find it. The warehousing industry is booming at the moment with warehouse vacancies falling dramatically in recent years.

But that shouldn’t stop you from trying to track warehouse space down anyway. Even though it might be difficult to locate a warehouse for your business at first, the importance of warehousing simply can’t be overstated in this day and age.

There are so many different ways in which warehousing will benefit your company, especially if you’re involved in e-commerce. Here are 7 ways warehousing will help your business.

1. Provides You with a Place to Store Your Products

If you run a tiny business that only has a couple of employees and a few sales every month, you don’t have a whole lot of trouble finding a place to store your products.

However, if you’re running a larger company, there’s a good chance that you don’t have enough room in your business to store everything that you’re selling. And even if you do, trying to run a company while tripping over all the products you have stored in your business isn’t a good way to go about doing things.

A warehouse will provide you with one central location to store all the products that your company creates and sells. It’ll make your business appear a lot more organized and give you some room to breathe in your company’s headquarters.

2. Allows You to Manage Your Inventory More Effectively

As your business grows and starts selling more and more products, inventory management is going to become very important. You’re going to need to create a system that allows you to manage your inventory as effectively as possible.

By managing your inventory, you can:

Keep track of how many products you have available and where they’re all located
Prevent products from getting stolen or lost during shipping and handling
Improve the relationships with any vendors who carry your products
Find ways to run your business as a whole more efficiently

Unfortunately, you’re not going to be able to create any kind of inventory management system before you obtain warehouse space. It’ll be almost impossible to do it in the back of your business or down in your business’ basement.

A warehouse will give you the room you’ll need to come up with an inventory management system that works well for your business.

3. Makes It Easier to Ship Products out to Customers

In 2018, people expect the products that they order online to be shipped to them immediately. Studies have shown that, even if you offer free shipping to people, they still want to see their package from you arrive in under five days, which is down a full day from just five years ago.

A centrally located warehouse can make it possible for you to ship items quickly. You can find them in your warehouse and get them in the mail in no time.

You can also offer same-day or next-day shipping to your customers in some instances if you do most of your business in the area surrounding your warehouse. You’ll be able to keep your customers a whole lot happier when you have a fully-functioning warehouse at your disposal.

4. Protects Your Products from Sustaining Damage

If you attempt to store your company’s products inside of your business and something like a theft or fire takes place, it could devastate you and your employees. All of your products will be gone along with many other things that you keep in your business.

A warehouse will help you avoid encountering this situation. Your products will be safer when they’re kept in a warehouse, and just in case anything does happen, they can be covered by an insurance policy.

Additionally, a warehouse will allow you to control the climate in which you store products. If you need to keep the temperature cool, you can do it. You can even obtain refrigerated warehouse space if your company specializes in selling perishable items.

5. Stabilizes the Prices of Your Products

As a business leader, your goal should be to meet the demands of your customers. That means creating enough products to satisfy those who want to buy them.

If your storage space is limited, though, this will likely present a problem. You won’t have enough room to supply the demand of your customers. And it could force you to sporadically raise and lower your prices on products based on the demand for them.

Warehousing will step in and stabilize your product prices by giving you room to store excess goods. You’ll be able to dip into the extra inventory that you keep in your warehouse when the demand for a product rises rather than raising prices.

6. Improves Your Customer Service Capabilities

Providing excellent customer service to those who come to you for your products is essential. People need to get answers to their pressing questions when they call on your customer service department.

A warehouse will enhance your customer service capabilities by providing your customer service representatives with more information. When a customer calls and asks, “Where is the product that I ordered two days ago?!”, a customer service rep will be able to track it in your warehouse and give the customer the information they need.

This will reflect well on your business. It’ll also reemphasize the importance of warehousing.

7. Gives You a Chance to Focus on Other Areas of Your Business

While picking products, packaging them up, and shipping them to customers are all important parts of your business operations, they aren’t things you should be worried about on a daily basis. The head of a company should be focused on big-picture items, not inventory management.

By investing in a warehouse, you’ll give someone else the responsibility of worrying about how to ship products out to customers. It’ll be one less thing that you have to have on your plate all the time.

Don’t Underestimate the Importance of Warehousing

If your company isn’t using a warehouse at the moment, you should reconsider the importance of warehousing to see how it could help you.

You should also consider linking up with a dependable last mile service in the Miami area to handle taking products from your warehouse to your customers’ front doors. It’ll help your business run more smoothly and make your warehouse even more beneficial for your business.

Do you need a hand setting up your warehouse in the first place? Read our blog to see some do and don’ts of warehouse operations.

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