From the pages of CargoTalk: Smaller fulfillment centres with automation are required to be productive and efficient: Naveen Rawat

COVID-19 has changed e-commerce for the better and warehousing plays a very important role. Sharing his expectations from warehouse developers, Naveen Rawat, Director & Co-founder, Holisol Logistics, says, “On the e-commerce side, we are getting the requirement of being able to be as close to the customer as possible. Land cost is important, therefore, these large hubs have to be located on the outskirts of the city because firstly land would not be available in the city and secondly it would be costly to do that. While the e-commerce company wants to do a 90-minutes delivery promise to the customer, location has to be taken care of with small space within the city that has to be optimally managed. There is going to be a lot of demand of smaller fulfilment centres with some sort of automation to still be productive and efficient and being closer to the city. This is one area where we feel a lot of warehousing space is going to be required from within the city in addition to large big boxes Grade-A quality spaces which would be required on the outskirts of the city.”