What factors influence the price of storage space?

Just as with houses or land, the warehousing costs of the logistics provider and therefore the price of a storage space are influenced by regional real estate prices. In cities like Berlin, Hamburg and Munich it is accordingly difficult to find favorable storage space. In rural areas, however, there are often providers with large warehouses that can store goods at very affordable prices. On the one hand, this difference is based on higher purchase prices of land and buildings, on the other hand, regional labor costs also play a decisive role and help determine the average cost of a logistics service.

Apart from the regional price fluctuations, seasonal price differences must be taken into account as well, as the different seasons also have an influence on the price for storage. The search for storage space can for example be a considerable effort around the Christmas season due to fully utilized warehousing capacities everywhere. Costs can partly double during these times. In order to be able to reduce the monthly storage costs, you should make an early effort to find suitable space. This is especially important if you want to store goods under special storage conditions, for example in cold storage or in a hazardous goods warehouse.

The nature, the type of goods and the associated storage requirements have a strong influence on pricing. This becomes very clear in the case of goods requiring cooling: cooling an entire warehouse down to low temperatures is costly for the service provider and associated with many fixed costs and restrictions. Therefore the price for storage under controlled temperature can be 2 to 3 times the price for shelf storage at ambient temperature. When storing dangerous goods and hazardous substances, required certifications and special safety precautions drive up prices as well.

Single, double or not stackable at all? Euro size or bulky goods with excess length? FiFo or LiFo? All these factors influence the storage costs per load carrier. For example, four double-stackable pallets, which can be placed on top of each other in block storage, are not only much easier to handle, but also take up less space than four non-stackable industrial pallets. Pallet storage according to the FiFo (First In First Out) principle also requires more effort and space than, for example, pallet storage according to the LiFo (Last In First Out) principle due to the complex, usually two-sided handling.

You don't want your goods to be stored, but you also want your products to be wrapped in tissue paper, placed in shipping cartons, individually covered with stickers and sent directly to the end customer? Fulfillment services of this kind naturally also influence the overall costs. In most cases, the expenses for picking the items make up considerably more than just the storage as well as the retrieval of the goods. Added to this are expenses for inventory management, material costs and the connection to the warehouse management software. In addition to fulfillment, this can also be observed in value-added services in contract logistics.