The surge in demand for e-commerce has reduced the vacancy rate of warehouses. Warehouse prices in many countries have risen steadily. If you find a location to buy land and build your own warehouse, you can not only own the property rights of the warehouse, but also enjoy the benefits of land appreciation. However, few companies in the cross-border e-commerce industry have such financial resources and risk resistance. Choose suburbs near airports and ports in more developed cities. They have convenient transportation facilities, complete supporting services, and a large radiation range. They are where consumers gather and it is convenient to formulate head-end plans. Warehouses close to the city can save distribution costs, but the rent is higher. The direction of the flow of goods is determined by the order flow. European overseas warehouses are developing in Eastern European countries with lower costs such as the Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary, and establishing border warehouses in the Netherlands, Belgium and other countries, mainly to effectively avoid tax and policy risks. For example, Australia’s economic population is mainly concentrated in the east and southeast coasts, with the main orders accounting for 35.2% in Sydney, NSW, 24.1% in Melbourne, VIC, and 20% in Brisbane, QLD. Warehouses in these areas can cover the three major economic zones.
In China, the rental area is usually evaluated based on the 1:1 relationship between order volume and area, that is, 1,000 orders require about 1,000m2 of warehouse area, but most e-commerce companies actually have a lower ratio than this. There are many factors that actually affect the warehouse area, such as order type, cargo size, SKU quantity, frequency of entry and exit, regional division, shelf height and layer height, and picking method. Third-party overseas warehouses should consider scalability and try to choose parks with a certain amount of vacant area. Warehouse expansion and relocation are inevitable with the development of enterprises, and enterprises should be guaranteed to have priority in leasing vacant warehouses. If the number of warehouses in the selected area is low, then moving warehouses is a big trouble. The presence of similar warehouse distribution centers in the surrounding area will also reduce the courier’s pickup cost, making it easier to sign a lower freight rate with the courier. A good working environment and accommodation and living facilities are necessary conditions for overseas warehouses to recruit employees, especially when the warehouse is operating at full capacity, and logistics in place can ensure stable production.
When renting a warehouse, it is important to consider the building structure of the warehouse and pay attention to the design quality of the warehouse. The price of a flat warehouse and a multi-layer warehouse with different structures in the same area differs by 30%~50%. Multi-storey warehouses are mostly factory buildings, and their costs are relatively lower than those of flat warehouses. Large-scale flat warehouses are scarce in megacities. The advantages of single-storey warehouses are that operations on the same floor are visualized, which is convenient for coordinated management, simpler assembly line planning, and lower overall space utilization than multi-storey warehouses. In terms of warehouse rent, you should obtain the approximate level of warehouse rent in the market in advance. When renting a warehouse, the owner needs to provide a corporate credit certificate or a bank guarantee. The warehouse deposit and utility fee deposit are used as the rent paid in the initial stage of the warehouse opening, which can be refunded after the warehouse contract is terminated. The prices of warehouse fire protection are similar. In terms of public security, places with too cheap prices may have poor public security.