What are warehouses?

Posted by Belle on June 25th, 2019

What are warehouses?

Warehouses are large buildings which are typically used for storage purposes. A variety of different items can be stored in these buildings by manufactures, wholesalers and other businesses. They are most often located in industrial areas rather than in town centres or around residential areas.

The exterior of the warehouses are often made up of numerous loading docks for goods to be loaded and unloaded from lorries directly in and out of the building. Inside you can typically find mechanical equipment such as forklifts which are used to move and store the goods onto wooden pallets. The shelving systems with the wooden storage pallets are used to make maximum use of the space available within the building, whilst making the goods still easy to access and move around. Prior to developments in mechanical technology, warehouse workers had to use manual pulley systems to move and store the goods.

Goods are often stored at any stage of their production process, from raw materials to finished items. Finished goods which are typically stored may include clothing and pre-made food items. There are more-food-specific warehouses which may be refrigerated as to help prevent the food and keep it at good quality. On average, most food items are not refrigerated in warehouses for longer than a year.

Wholesalers are frequent users of warehouses due to the fact that they buy their goods in significantly large quantities directly from manufacturers and do not always require a shop for customers to visit in person as most of their customers are other businesses.

There are three main types of warehouses which mostly depends on who uses it. The first is a private warehouse in which a company, typically a manufacturer, uses a warehouse to store only its own items. These can include raw materials, partially finished items or complete goods, alternatively they may use them to store equipment and machinery.

Then there is a public warehouse which is often owned by a storage company. Space within these can then be rented out by other businesses or individuals to store their items. This is beneficial to smaller businesses as most cannot afford to have their own warehouses due to their high initial cost.

The other type is a bonded warehouse which is licensed by the government, storing imported items and they cannot leave until the custom duty has been paid. This helps importers when they cannot yet pay the customs duty upon the arrival of goods and they can therefore remain in the warehouse.