In the most basic sense, warehouse management refers to the management of a warehouse. In large organizations, this may comprise many different departments, such as inventory control and storage. In small business or home office situations, it is often limited to tracking inventory and purchases within the company on a database or spreadsheet.
A warehouse can be any place where products are stored before they are distributed to retail outlets or consumers. This includes everything from a small shop that keeps some extra inventory on hand to huge warehouses run by wholesalers or manufacturers, which stock everything from boxes of nails to cases of canned soup, from bolts of cloth to pallets of televisions.
In recent years, the term has also been used to refer to companies that actually fulfill online orders for retail orders using traditional brick-and-mortar warehouses. While it is true that these operations exist and employ workers who perform physical tasks in much the same way as those in conventional warehouses, the main focus is on managing and fulfilling orders placed online.
Warehousing (WH) is a storage and distribution service that operates in retail facilities owned and operated by third parties. It is a subset of the logistics industry. A wholesaler brings products to the warehouse, which stores the products, and then delivers them to retailers at a much lower cost than if they were delivered directly from the manufacturer or wholesaler. A similar service called bonded storage allows a company to store merchandise in another company’s bonded warehouse under customs control.
A typical warehouse will have long rows of shelves, with boxes piled high on pallets, one pallet for each SKU code. There might be cranes for moving the pallets around or robots for moving the product to a conveyor belt or other automated apparatus for shipping, labeling or packing.
Warehouse is a (relatively) new e-commerce platform that helps connect brands with stores who can sell their products. Though many brands have opted to develop their own e-commerce sites, the rise of Amazon has forced many more to rely on third parties in order to reach their customers.
Warehouses are usually large buildings that take up at least 5,000 square feet and often have areas outside the main building where trucks can pull in and load and unload their cargo. They must be secure against theft and protected from weather conditions. They also need forklift equipment for moving pallets around. Warehouses may have only small staffs and even though they stay open 24 hours per day, seven days a week, there are only certain times when truck drivers can pick up or drop off packages.