Are you an eCommerce business owner drowning in inventory with every nook of your home doubling as storage? Or, is your inventory with a third-party provider who is eating at your profit margins? You’re not alone. As the eCommerce landscape continues to expand, small businesses are finding that the key to keeping up isn’t just selling more—it’s storing smarter. 

With eCommerce sales representing nearly 15% of total retail sales in the U.S. and still growing, the efficiency of your storage solution can make or break your business. 

This guide delves into eCommerce warehousing, a game-changer for small businesses looking to optimize operations, accelerate order fulfillment, and maximize profits in the competitive online marketplace.

What Is Ecommerce Warehousing?

Ecommerce warehousing is a strategic facility tailored for online businesses, providing a secure place for receiving, storing, organizing, and shipping goods. It integrates essential operations such as inventory management, order fulfillment, and returns processing into a cohesive system. This setup includes advancements like automated sorting and digital inventory tracking, crucial for small companies aiming to scale operations without compromising service quality. By centralizing these activities, eCommerce warehouses optimize the supply chain, enhance efficiency, and enable faster shipping times, leading to increased customer satisfaction.

Benefits of Ecommerce Warehousing

It’s common for new eCommerce businesses to operate out of your home and store goods in a garage. However, these are not the best options for a growing company. ECommerce warehousing solutions offer you benefits beyond being able to use your garage again.

Keep Organized

First, how organized is your garage? If you use the garage for both personal and business use, your products could easily become lost. Ask yourself: can you easily determine stock levels, know when to reorder products, or decide if you can fulfill a customer order? It can be hard to answer these questions with unorganized inventory spread across your home and garage.

A small warehouse space solves organizational hurdles by providing you with everything you need to receive shipments, organize, and store all your eCommerce items. A well-organized facility allows you to accurately determine when to reorder goods and to keep track of the ones that you have. You’ll reduce problems with lost inventory and the added costs of reordering products too often. To learn more about all of the amenities that WareSpace offers visit our full amenities list and breakdown.

Save Time

If you store goods in your garage, a spare room, or the living space of your home, finding items that you sell online may require you to sort through several locations around your home. This wastes precious time that you could otherwise use toward running your business.

ECommerce warehouse solutions solve this problem by keeping everything you need where you can easily find them. Plus, small warehouse spaces have the room required for you to package and ship the goods that you sell. Better organization of your inventory and adequate space to prepare items for shipping saves you time.

Reduce Shipping Delays

By having your inventory meticulously organized, you reduce the chances of sending the wrong order to customers. Incorrect orders eat into your time and profits given the attention required to process returns and correct orders. Plus, your customer satisfaction can drop when you send out the wrong items. When you know where everything is in your warehouse and that you have enough items in stock to fulfill customer orders, you can get your shipments out quickly.

Another way that ecommerce warehouse solutions reduce shipping times is by putting your products closer to your customers. Depending on how you choose to leverage the benefits of warehousing and shipping for ecommerce businesses, you may choose to store goods in small warehouse spaces around the country. Distributing your inventory from multiple places reduces the shipping time, allowing customers to get their products as quickly as possible.

Less Stress

By moving your ecommerce operations into a small warehouse space, you return your garage and home living spaces to the rest of your household. You and your family regain more room at home when you have a warehouse dedicated to storing your business inventory.

What to Look for in an Ecommerce Warehouse Space

When looking for an eCommerce warehouse space, search for ecommerce warehouse providers that offer the following perks:

  • On-site security
  • Proximity to your customers
  • Facility management
  • Regular cleaning
  • Adequate storage space for your needs with scalable solutions for the future
  • Loading docks for receiving and smaller package receiving
  • Logistics equipment to move goods around your warehouse, such as dollies

With the above features, an eCommerce warehouse provides your business with an upgrade in inventory storage.

Pros and Cons of Ecommerce Warehousing for Businesses

Ecommerce warehousing offers numerous advantages that can streamline operations and support business growth, but it’s also accompanied by some challenges that need consideration. Here’s a balanced look at the benefits and potential drawbacks to help you determine if an ecommerce warehouse is right for your business:

Pros

  1. Enhanced Efficiency: Centralizing your inventory in a warehouse significantly improves the efficiency of order processing and shipping. With everything in one location, it’s easier to manage stock levels, handle shipments, and speed up order fulfillment.
  2. Scalability: As your business grows, so do your storage needs. Ecommerce warehouses offer scalable solutions, allowing you to increase space and logistical support as needed without the need for significant capital investment.
  3. Improved Security: Professional warehousing solutions provide superior security measures compared to home storage or smaller facilities. This includes both physical security and cybersecurity measures, ensuring your products and data are well-protected.
  4. Cost-Effective: While there are upfront costs, over time, utilizing a warehouse can be more cost-effective compared to managing multiple storage locations or expanding existing premises. Warehouses can reduce the per-unit storage cost, thanks to their optimized use of space.

Cons

  1. Initial Costs: Setting up or moving to a professional ecommerce warehouse can involve significant initial costs, including rent, setup, and possible disruption to business operations during the move.
  2. Less Control: Depending on the management structure of the warehouse, you might experience less direct control over certain processes, such as the handling and shipping of goods, which can lead to dependency on third-party providers.
  3. Fixed Location: Once you choose a warehouse, your inventory is fixed in that location, which can increase shipping costs and times if your customers are not located nearby. This could also limit your flexibility in responding to market changes quickly.
  4. Management Complexity: Managing a larger warehouse space can introduce complexities in logistics, requiring better management systems and potentially more staff. This can increase operational costs and complexity.

By understanding these pros and cons, businesses can better assess whether ecommerce warehousing aligns with their operational strategies and long-term goals.

Ecommerce Warehouse Management Best Practices

An organized ecommerce warehouse makes practicing good management easier. By implementing a warehouse management system (WMS) and connecting your online store to it, you’ll more easily be able to establish inventory reordering processes and make the most of the space. Scaling up for future growth becomes easier.

Use a Warehouse Management System

As your ecommerce business grows out of your home and into a small warehouse space, your inventory tracking method should also scale up. The most powerful tool for organizing and managing your small warehouse space is a WMX. A WMS tracks product availability, helps you to plan when to reorder products, facilitates order fulfillment, and manages your supply chain. You will save a lot of paperwork and will streamline your business operations when you have your eCommerce inventory managed by your WMS.

Connect Your Store to Your WMS

Another way to make the most of your WMS is by connecting it to your ecommerce store. When you do this, the system can speed up order fulfillment, send customers updates on shipping, and facilitate operations across multiple sales channels and ecommerce sites.

Determine Inventory Reordering Frequency

Keep track of your inventory and how quickly it sells. This information will allow you to calculate the inventory turnover ratio (ITR). The turnover ratio reflects the strength of sales of your eCommerce business. Larger numbers indicate stronger sales. To find it, divide the cost of goods sold by the total inventory value. Determine how often you should budget for restocking by dividing 365 by the calculated ITR. This gives you the average number of days your business needs to go sell its full inventory.

When choosing to reorder individual items in your inventory, set a minimum number of products to have on hand to fulfill orders until the new products arrive. Each product minimum should be based on past sales. Fast-selling products may have a higher minimum number than goods that sell at slower rates. If you have a WMS for your ecommerce warehouse, set up the system to reorder as soon as inventory items reach minimum levels.

Choosing eCommerce Warehousing Solutions

When choosing a small warehouse space, consider your business needs. You may need a space that offers the flexibility to serve both as inventory storage and as an office. Quality solutions will have amenities to do both and to securely store your eCommerce inventory without breaking your small business budget.

Check out our options at WareSpace. You’ll find small warehouse spaces ideal for those transitioning away from home-run businesses. Plus, you get perks that you won’t find from other eCommerce warehousing companies. We offer an on-site manager, package receiving, scalable spaces, Wifi, and much more for one affordable rate.

Ready to Transform Your Ecommerce Operations?

As the digital marketplace continues to expand, the right warehousing solution can be the catalyst that propels your business into its next phase of growth. The surge in eCommerce sales post-pandemic isn’t just a trend—it’s the new business normal. With WareSpace, you gain more than just a storage space; you unlock a partnership that scales with your needs and enhances your operational efficiency. 

Don’t let logistics hold you back. Explore how our tailored warehousing solutions can streamline your operations, reduce overhead costs, and boost your customer satisfaction. It’s time to optimize, expand, and excel. Are you ready to elevate your eCommerce business with WareSpace?