Co-warehousing: The next big thing in logistics industry

After co-working and co-living, the next big thing in the world of shared spaces is co-warehousing- collaborative workplaces for businesses with physical products and art entrepreneurs.

With e-commerce witnessing unprecedented boom across the globe, many small businesses are facing logistics issues especially last-mile delivery which carries an in-proportionate cost. Having a conventional warehousing space in India means long, multi-year contracts, hiring operation staff, acquisition of expensive machinery, its maintenance, and not to mention the monthly utility bills.

Thus, warehousing marketplace is experiencing a trend towards collaborative economies and greater flexibility, where different businesses can seamlessly receive, store and ship merchandise from a shared warehouse without the harshness of costly rents, maintenance or long term commitments. Such spaces also give businesses ability to customize a storage plan that matches very specific needs, regardless of company size.

Other advantages of such shared warehousing marketplaces are:

1.     Leveraging of equipment: Besides divvying up many direct and indirect costs like security and utility bills, co-warehousing also saves you from purchasing expensive equipments like forklifts, pallet-jacks, industrial grade racks etc, opening up the market to smaller players and start-ups.

2.     Scalability: Co-warehousing lets users to adapt quickly to variable demand,allowing for an incremental rollout, which presents less risk than housing a considerably larger amount of product if the launch is less successful than desired.

3.     Flexible labour: Co-warehousing brings with it the flexibility of cross-trained associates who have access to state-of-the-art warehouse and management systems and can handle a multitude of situations based on customer needs.

While industrial spaces developers in India have already started building large logistics park where multiple companies with warehousing and inventory management needs can operate under one roof, some global firms are taking the idea a notch higher, trying different permutations and combination within collaborative spaces. One such combination bringing together co-working and co-warehousing.

These community centres of innovation will have places to work and hold meetings, similar to what more traditional co-working spaces offer. But there will also be places for small entrepreneurs and artists to store their goods and creations, hire shared logistics services and heavy lifters as needed, all on site. For artists, there will even be gallery space to host exhibition, and event space for all to use.