What is a shared warehouse? How does it compare to a private warehouse and 3PL?

A shared warehouse is a single warehouse place subdivided to support multiple businesses. Sharing the costs of space, labor, machines, and technology can help streamline your supply chain and be much more cost effective. Additional benefits include the flexibility of scaling up and down on a need basis, a community support system, and short term leases.

A private warehouse is a single warehouse building supporting one company. A larger company usually rents a private warehouse to support its larger inventory and shipments. There are additional cost, long lease, and additional labor to manage the entire property.

A 3PL (third-party logistics), is a shared warehouse managed by a warehouse management company. It has many benefits as orders are processed by a third party in quick orderly fashion. The challenges that arise, are the high cost of fulfillment and storage, as well as the strict guidelines 3PLs require companies to follow.