If you’re a success business that plans to expand into a wider market, then no doubt you’ve reached the conclusion that you’ll need a warehouse sooner or later. Whether you want to become the next great retailer to rival Amazon or simply have a lot of stock in your store, you have to plan for expansion sooner or later.
If you run a small business such as a food service or supermarket, then you’ll know the struggles of having a small warehouse. Not only does it limit the amount of stock you can carry at a time, but it also limits the variety of products you have. Having too much variety is a bad idea for a small store, but it’s frustrating to be limited by space in your warehouse.
To help you decide if it’s time to get a larger storage area or expand your building, here are three signs that you might be limited by a small warehouse.
Your customers keep asking if you have something or another size
If you’ve ever had to turn down a customer because you don’t have the item they want, then you’ll know that their disappointed expression is enough to make you feel like you’ve failed as a retail business. But if you simply can’t afford to order new products, then there’s not much you can do until you’ve cleared out some stock.
It’s equally as frustrating to own a clothing or shoe store and not carry enough sizes. You’ll have to conduct a scan of your sales to find out what the most common shoe and clothing sizes are and order extra, but there are some cases where your regular customers might have an uncommon size but you always have to turn them down because you don’t have enough space to carry multiples of each size.
Your warehouse is a mess
If you spend more than a minute looking for something and retrieving it, then you could benefit from a reorganised storage area. Push back pallet racks are an inexpensive way to organise your warehouse. Instead of leaving unlabelled boxes around or stashing them on makeshift shelves, get some proper warehouse quality storage and organise all of your stock properly.
You’re wasting money and time if you haven’t organised your warehouse. If your employees are spending more time looking for the items instead of speaking with customers and filling shelves, then your warehouse is bottlenecking the sales process and needs to be upgraded.
You’ve had accidents in your warehouse
Whether it’s a shelf toppling over or an employee tripping over a box that was left on the floor, your warehouse could be a health and safety hazard if it’s filled to the brim. Avoid getting sued by your employees for accidents and tidy it up. A well-organised warehouse is the first step to cleaning it up, but making sure your employees recycle boxes, remove plastic wrappings and have plenty of waste bins to pack things away.
However, sometimes it’s almost impossible to keep the warehouse clear because there’s just not enough room. With a new and improved warehouse, you’ll find that there is more space to move around and more shelves to store items.