Warehousing and storage: what to ask before you sign

Picking a warehouse partner is less about square footage than most shippers expect. Buildings are easy to compare on paper. What separates a good fit from an expensive mistake is how the operation runs day to day — and that only comes out if you ask.

How is space actually billed?

Pallet position, square foot, and cubic foot pricing all sound similar until your volume moves. Ask which unit you are billed on, whether there is a minimum, and what happens in a slow month. Ask how overflow is handled when you exceed your committed space, and at what rate. A quote that shows only one number is usually hiding the second one.

What is included, and what is a separate line item?

Receiving, putaway, cycle counts, pallet wrap, labels, disposal of damaged goods, and after-hours access are sometimes bundled and sometimes billed individually. Neither approach is wrong, but you cannot compare two quotes until you know which is which. Ask for a sample invoice from a customer of similar size.

Who touches your inventory, and how do they know what to do?

Ask whether the floor staff are employees or temp labor, how long the average person has been there, and what training looks like for handling your category. Turnover on the floor shows up later as mispicks and damage.

How will you see your inventory?

You should know before you sign whether you get a login, a daily report, or an email when you ask. Ask how often counts are reconciled, what the tolerance is, and who absorbs shrink. Ask how a discrepancy gets escalated and how fast it is typically resolved.

What happens when something goes wrong?

Every warehouse has a bad week. The useful question is what the process looks like: who calls you, how quickly, and what the remedy is. Ask for an example of a recent problem and how it was handled.

How does the agreement end?

Read the exit terms before you read the rate card. Notice period, removal fees, final-month billing, and who pays to load out are all negotiable at the start and almost never negotiable later.

If you are working through this list for your own business, we are happy to answer these questions about our own operation directly. Tell us what you are storing and we will say plainly whether we are a good fit.