If you’re starting a business you’ve got a lot on your plate. A lot of new business owners take for granted their storage solutions or they figure they’ll deal with storage issues once they start to grow.
Proper storage solutions are an important part of ensuring your business runs smoothly, if you don’t have proper storage for your inventory from day one, you could end up with problems down the line. Not to mention, improper storage practices can cause problems and end up costing you more money. That’s why we want to make sure you understand the different types of storage centers and how your business can benefit from starting out with a storage solution that’s perfect for your needs.
Distribution Centers for Storage
A distribution center is a large building designed for distributors and wholesalers to store items to be shipped to another location or directly to customers. Distribution centers, particularly for online retailers and e-commerce companies, are an integral part of the order fulfillment system.
Usually, the distribution center acts as a middle man between the customer and the retailer. As the retailer, you would use a distribution center to store your products and they would be shipped to the customer right from the distribution center.
Processing Distribution Centers for Storage
Slightly different from a regular distribution center (DC) is a processing distribution center or PDC. If you use a PDC as part of your storage solution you’ll benefit from some advanced features. While a DC will often package and label products for you, a PDC can handle products that need special care like foods with temperature control and products with parts that need to be assembled or installed.
If your business sells a specialty product, you might benefit from upgrading to a processing distribution center.
Transfer Centers
A transfer center can play an important role in shipping your inventory but you should know that you won’t be able to use a transfer center for storage. Just like its name implies, a transfer center sorts products and then sends them off to their next destination. This is also called cross-docking. If you use a transfer center it will be important that they have the shipping information upon receiving your inventory.
Fulfillment Centers for Storage
Last but not least, fulfillment centers have gained popularity with the rise of e-commerce. A fulfillment center can often help you with many logistics issues on top of acting as storage for your products. A fulfillment center may manage, pack and ship your orders as well as managing your inventory and sometimes even providing you with valuable inventory data that can help you improve your business.
Some fulfillment centers even handle returns and other customer service issues.
At American Manufacturing Solutions we have solutions for your storage needs. Our experts are standing by and will be happy to help you decide what kind of storage is best for your company so you can continue to grow without worrying about the logistics of storing and transferring your inventory yourself. Please contact us today for more information about our storage solutions.
