What Kind of Shelving is Best for Ecommerce Storage

Posted by Barbra Barton on April 30th, 2021

The task of choosing the right Industrial Metal Shelves for an e-commerce storage warehouse cannot possibly be fully addressed in just a few paragraphs. However, we will attempt to outline the primary concerns and considerations that need to be taken into account when making these decisions.

This topic has become the hub of discussion in the industry during the last decade due to the rapid introduction of automation in all aspects of the supply chain and its operations. The increased volume of online sales is driving a lot of business in the direction of the e-commerce warehouse, making it one of the most important parts of most large companies. It has in fact completely or almost completely replaced the brick-and-mortar store as the way of doing business.

In order to accommodate the expectation of buyers to receive their items within a few days of ordering them, Metal Storage Shelves needed to adapt a great deal. This expectation has shaped a new fulfillment process that leans heavily on automation. It in turn requires a different type of Metal Industrial Shelving and an entirely different type of thinking to plan for it.

The traditional way of item-picking that relied on employees walking along shelves on foot and putting items in boxes has been rendered almost entirely obsolete. Modern warehouses will often use picking modules that send items down conveyor belts to sorting stations where they will then be handled by human employees.

The type of Industrial Metal Shelves needed to accommodate this additional automated equipment is different and new.

Traditional and Modern Metal Industrial Shelving

It is often the case that traditional shelving solutions will not be entirely replaced by newer options. Depending on the type and volume of inventory a specific warehouse or supply chain handles, different combinations of different metal shelving solutions may need to be used in the same space.

What this essentially means is that outfitting a warehouse is no longer just putting shelves in a hangar. This has now become a full-scale engineering process with a multitude of factors and considerations that need to be carefully weighed in order to reach the right decisions.

Planning for the Future

An often-overlooked fact is that whether or not automation is being installed in a specific warehouse now does not mean that it won’t be installed a few years down the road. With growth and change happening so rapidly it may be prudent to plan for automation and install the type of Industrial Metal Shelves that will accommodate it when it's needed.

While we realize this does not begin to answer the multitude of questions surrounding this topic, we hope we manage to outline the right mindset that will help address them efficiently.