Offsite stock: find out what this logistics strategy involves, what it offers and how to put it in place.
Does your business have storage requirements you cannot always meet? Holding all your goods means owning one or more large warehouses, and you may simply not have the room. If that is your situation, offsite stock, a logistics strategy used more and more widely, is worth looking into seriously.
Before turning to the advantages, it is worth being clear about what we are discussing. Choosing a storage solution for your logistics hubs means weighing up a great many factors, and large storage areas take up a great deal of room. Hence the appeal of offsite stock.
In a sentence, offsite storage means relocating part of your stock to small external warehouses. Doing so lightens the load on the supply chain and makes stock management easier. For an offsite storage strategy to make sense, several factors have to be weighed, and above all your operation has to be organised down to the last detail.
In practice, offsite stock requires one or more satellite warehouses, scaled to your delivery area, together with computerised stock management tools. You also need several fully secured transit areas and a range of handling equipment.
Conventional storage requires storage warehouses. When you have large quantities of goods to collect, store, pick and dispatch, you need large buildings, and the room to put them tends to run out. Offsite stock removes that problem, because most of your goods are held in what are known as satellite warehouses (see below).
A satellite warehouse is a decentralised storage space located at a strategic point. Unlike a conventional storage warehouse, it is much smaller and can even be mobile. As a rule there is a whole network of satellite structures, holding your goods and delivering them far more quickly.
Offsite stock is as effective as it is advantageous. But what does it actually deliver? Read on.
First, offsite stock brings operating costs down, sometimes dramatically. With this logistics strategy, you have no need for a large warehouse with substantial labour and extensive handling equipment, so the outgoings tied to your business shrink.
The figures suggest that businesses using offsite stock cut their dispatch and delivery times by around 25%. Faster deliveries mean more satisfied customers, which counts for a great deal. Your teams on site in the satellite warehouses are far more responsive, which also shortens the time needed to prepare parcels for delivery and to carry out a range of other operations.
Space in storage areas is a major drawback and a genuine challenge. Holding all your goods requires a logistics hub on a large scale. With offsite stock, making the most of space and resources becomes far easier and far simpler. Watch your stock transfers closely, though, so that your satellite warehouses are never short.
Contrary to received wisdom, decentralising your stock improves your teams' productivity. On average it rises by around 25% compared with a conventional storage solution. You can see why offsite storage deserves attention: there is everything to gain. More productive teams mean higher output and, with it, higher revenue.
This may not have occurred to you, but offsite stock has a positive environmental impact. If you champion values that respect the planet and want to commit to sustainable development, this logistics strategy will suit you perfectly. Offsite storage reduces your carbon footprint, makes better use of energy resources and improves the way you manage waste. In other words, the case for offsite stock is all upside.
Now that you know more about offsite, or decentralised, storage, a change of strategy is worth serious thought. Changing everything will not necessarily be simple, of course, because there is a great deal to take into account. You will also have to put training in place so that your teams can adapt to the new logistics strategy. For years, conventional storage was the only method available; offsite stock has become steadily more popular of late. It may be time to look to the future.
Share this article
