How can warehousing and distribution services benefit small businesses?

Growth is important to all businesses, but small businesses will find it especially exciting. Growth means your products are in high demand and your revenue is increasing, but it also means you may be starting to struggle to keep up with the regular demands of your growing supply chain and distribution business. You may not have enough space to store your products, or you may find that your labor is taxed when you try to pack and ship everything in time.

In this case, turning to third-party warehousing and distribution services may help. Such services allow you to meet the demands of your growing business while minimizing stress, avoiding the full burden of warehousing and distribution management, and focusing on continued growth.

1. Let warehousing and distribution management focus on building your business

Coordinating shipments, managing storage space, organizing order delivery, formulating logistics, etc. are all fundamental parts of warehouse and distribution management. Unfortunately, they also take up a lot of time that you can better use to focus on your core business and growth. Third-party warehousing and distribution services provide skilled management and supply chain integration, allowing you to focus on the projects that matter most to you.

2. Reach a larger geographic area

As you try to grow your business, it's natural to try to expand your reach and start finding customers farther and farther away. So you need to find a way to scale your distribution and supply chain operations appropriately to match these new distances, while ensuring customers don't wait too long. Third-party warehousing and distribution services have centers in key geographic areas for better regional access. By leveraging their infrastructure, you can get greater coverage than you can with alone.

3. Small initial investment

Starting a warehousing and distribution service yourself takes a lot of time, money and effort. You need to find properties, buy properties, hire workers and managers, make sure everything is in compliance, organize handling and shipping procedures, coordinate with the supply chain, and more. As mentioned above, third-party providers already own most, if not all, of the infrastructure. Additionally, warehousing and distribution service providers spread costs among multiple customers. This gives you more flexibility with their service, as you only pay for what you use. Smaller investments mean less risk and also free up more money for core business activities.

4. Find the right third-party partner

Ideally, you'll work with a warehousing and distribution company that shares your preference for flexible, cost-effective services. This is part of the reason why Lean Supply Solutions has created a lean approach. Our proven philosophy is based on eliminating any operation, equipment or resource that does not add value to your supply chain. By ensuring the right product is delivered to the right customer at the right time, we deliver consistent, predictable and high-quality results.