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Why racking efficiency can make or break a business
30th September 2025
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In the era of e-commerce, where customers expect their orders to magically appear on their doorsteps within 24 hours, the role of logistics is more important than ever. The drive to compete with big players such as Amazon means that the margin for error is thin – making every optimisation important, and every delay potentially catastrophic.
The advent of same-day delivery and new delivery methods looks set to only increase these pressures, and force smaller companies to find new ways to compete. Warehouse racking could be one of these differential factors: making the picking, packing and shipping processes as smooth and efficient as possible.
The rise of the racking powerhouse
The exponential rise of online shopping has raised the demand for warehouse space, and changed how warehouses built and utilised. This means not only a higher warehouse throughput, but also different warehouse designs and locations, with urban warehouses growing in popularity. Smaller, more localised fulfilment centres are popping up to provide same-day deliveries of popular items, with new delivery vehicles designed to zip through the city streets.
These modern warehouses increasingly use an advanced warehouse management system (WMS), a kind of software which gathers data from multiple sources to manage aspects of the warehouse, and coordinate the wider logistics process. This most commonly includes stock management, and can automate processes such as ordering and coordinating deliveries based on current and predicted stock levels.
While increasingly advanced technology is infiltrating the warehouse, pallet racking is still often its greatest differential. While well-designed and managed racking can make a warehouse more efficient, it doesn’t take much for it to introduce issues. Misplaced and inaccessible items can lead to picking errors and delays, increasing the number of returns, and the general frustration of customers. Poorly designed racking layouts can also cause bottlenecks, and lead to product damage, where racks are not designed to support certain items or pallets.
The ‘domino effect’ of bad racking
These small inefficiencies are common in most warehouses, but each minor flaw in racking can potentially cascade, and snowball into major issues. A single picking error can instigate a prolonged customer service nightmare, leading to a bad review on a public platform. A missed next-day delivery deadline can erode customer trust in a service whose distinguishing factor is timeliness. And in an increasingly competitive environment of online shopping, small inefficiencies can be the difference between success and failure.
The fundamental simplicity of racking can trick businesses into thinking that its design and installation are broadly unimportant; you install it, you put stuff on it, and you take stuff off it. This general school of thought may have been appropriate in an era of lower throughput, where fewer staff worked in a business for longer, knew where to find things, and had fewer time pressures on doing so. But the nature of modern business means this is no longer the case – and makes racking the source of numerous marginal gains.
Higher density storage formats can allow for more efficient use of space, both in terms of the building footprint and headroom. More flexible formats and different pallet types allow for the storage of many different types of goods, in a way that makes them more accessible, and ensures that perishable goods are accessed from oldest to newest. Ergonomics can also be considered, as well as racking safety, with greater attention paid to the robustness of racking systems and the safety of employees working at height.
Invest in efficiency, reap the rewards
Investing in a racking upgrade, extension or redesign can improve efficiency for every surrounding aspect of a warehouse. A racking design which improves the flow of traffic and prevents bottlenecks around popular SKUs can substantially reduce picking times, as well as employee frustration and the potential for collisions. Better space utilisation can allow for more SKUs to be stocked, and delay the need for an expensive relocation or expansion.
Upgrading racking can also be a perfect opportunity to implement or harness the full benefits of an advanced WMS, or to adopt automation. Using novel racking formats such as automated storage and retrieval (AS/RS) can automate parts of the warehouse without investing in cobots or autonomous vehicles. Alternatively, racking can be adapted to accommodate these new technologies, which are increasingly available to rent through robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) providers.
Narrow-aisle racking can also be combined with new, flexible pallet trucks to significantly increase your storage capacity, as much as doubling the available capacity or halving the size of your racking footprint. These savings can allow part of the warehouse to be dedicated to other uses, such as a larger packing and fulfilment area, or new office space to manage employees or automation more closely. What may seem like simple changes to static racking can drastically change the design, operation, and performance of your warehouse.
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Racking is often the least-heralded aspect of the e-commerce process, but these simple shelves can have an outsized impact on your operations. By investing in racking efficiency, the accuracy, speed and size of your ecommerce operation can improve massively – creating a well-oiled machine that thrives in the age of next-day delivery.
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