Warehouse is a commercial building for storage of goods. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport businesses, custom and alot more. The warehouse is a commercial building for storage of goods. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport businesses, custom, and a lot more.

The five types of warehouses:

1. Private Warehouses
   2. Public Warehouses
   3. Bonded Storage
   4. Co-operative Warehouses
   5. Distribution Centres

Warehousing and logistics are two different sides of the same coin, which is the safe & economical storage of goods, inventory, information within a specified area, or building. Logistics is generally the detailed organization and implementation of a complex operation in different management times.

Co-operative Warehouses:
These warehouses are owned, managed, and controlled by Cooperative societies. These societies provide storage facilities at the most economical rates for their members only. The primary purpose of running such warehouses is not to earn profits but to help their members.

Bonded Storage:
These warehouses are owned, managed, and controlled by the government as well as private agencies. Bonded warehouses are storage facilities used to store imported goods for which import duty is still paid. The bonded warehouses which are run by private agencies have to obtain a license from the government.
Globally, it will be seen that these warehouses are found near the ports and usually owned by dock authorities. Bonded warehouses are subject to two types of taxes: (a) Excise duty and (b) Custom duty.

Distribution Centres:
These types of storage facilities usually have ample space, which enables the fast movement of large quantities of stores for a short period. While, on the other hand, conventional warehouses hold goods for a long time, say two months or one year.
These warehouses, basically by nature, serve as points in the distribution system at which goods are procured from different suppliers and quickly transferred to various customers.
To minimize delivery time, these storage facilities are found close to transportation centers.

Public Warehouses:
These warehouses are owned by the government and semi-government bodies and are made available to private firms to store goods on payment of rent. The open warehouses are usually set up to help small traders who are not in a position to have their warehouses due to financial constraints. Retailers sometimes due to increased sales even find their private warehouses insufficient if their facilities have reached capacity or if they are making an individual, huge purchase of products for some reason. Anyone can avail of these facilities to solve its short-term distribution needs.

Private Warehouses:
These are owned and managed by the channel suppliers (manufacturers/traders) and resellers and are used exclusively for their distribution activities.

Warehouse Services are growing fast, and today the concept of 3PL or third-party logistics has arisen. A manufacturer can concentrate on its core production process and outsource the storage and handling of goods to someone else. This third party would take care of the entire logistics right from shifting goods to their storage center, safe room, and tracking and even dispatch of products to clients.