Warehouse Logistics: The Benefits of Working with a Nationally Integrated Warehouse Network

Warehouse logistics. They can play a critical part in a business because of how many there are in the United States. 

Currently, there are over 4.2 million warehouses scattered across the country. 

For those of you that own your own businesses and need a warehouse to store and distribute products, you are likely looking for the most convenient way to do so. Well, one way is to be part of a warehouse network. 

What is a warehouse network? What are the biggest benefits of a business being part of one?  

Here are some of the biggest pros. 

One of the biggest benefits for a business to be part of a warehouse network is that it will save money on storage and distribution. The reason for this is in a warehouse network, you are working directly with one supplier. 

As a result, you are giving this supplier a large chunk of your business. If your business is large enough, then the supplier will likely be willing to give you a discount for buying in bulk. 

It tends to pay to be a loyal customer of one brand. Think of being part of a warehouse network as showing loyalty to one warehouse brand. 

Another benefit of being part of a warehouse network is that you have more direct connections to other warehouses across the country. 

What does this mean? It means it becomes a lot easier and a lot cheaper to use a warehouse in certain areas. 

For example, let's say your company is based out of New York City. Suddenly, you get a big order that needs to go to Boise, Idaho. 

The problem is that you rarely ever have to go to Idaho, so you do not have a dedicated shipment route in that area. Ordering a sole shipment to go to a more rural part of the country could add up if you have no connections.  

How does the warehouse network help you here? It gives you a much greater chance of having a connected warehouse near that area. If there is one near Boise here, then you can use the network to get the shipment to the closest warehouse to Boise. 

In other words, having a warehouse network at your disposal gives you more flexible shipment options. As a result, you lose concern over getting shipments to less common delivery locations. 

Going off of flexible location options, one bonus pro can come from delivering products to unexpected places. That pro can be developing a new market by accident. 

Let's say that you are a beer company from the east coast, and you delivered some cases of beer to Boise. The people in Boise end up liking the beer and are suddenly starting to demand more of it. 

You end up shipping even more beer out. Next thing you know it spreads all over Idaho and into Montana. All of a sudden, your beer company has a solid hold in the northwest region. 

In this example, that target market can be one that you never meant to develop. However, you took advantage of an opportunity because you had the right warehouse network on your side. Keep your options for more new revenue streams open by doing things like this. 

Using warehouse networks for delivery can make the delivery routes more flexible and increase the likelihood that packages will be delivered to the correct customer in a shorter period of time.

This is very important for businesses because customers have an expectation of online orders getting delivered quickly. About 62% of online shoppers expect orders that have free delivery to arrive in less than three business days. 

For orders that go to places like Boise, this can be a tough expectation to meet. However, if you are connected to warehouses all over the country, it suddenly becomes a lot easier to meet those delivery expectations. 

On top of this, you are likely to increase customer satisfaction because you are getting those orders delivered faster. As a result, you are likely increasing your chances of those customers placing another order with your business. 

Finally, because you are dealing with warehouses that are all part of one network, this will make it a lot easier to reach out to customer support. All you have to do is call the company's phone number. 

For those of you that deal with several different warehouse companies for deliveries, it can be a headache trying to keep up with all of that contact information. 

Also, if you have a problem with a large number of shipments for some reason, it will be much easier to track all those shipments down with one warehouse logistics company. This can happen if you need to recall products going to several different places. 

If that happens to your company, having one contact will smooth that out a lot faster than having to call several companies to get your shipments back.