Warehousing space is due to be expanded this year in order to prevent any
capacity bottlenecks and cope with the increase in customer enquiries at the
Rhenus Warehousing Solutions sites in Eisenach, Hamburg-Harburg and
Dortmund. As online and mail order retailing now accounts for almost 13 percent
of all volumes in the retail trade and more and more people in Germany and
beyond are ordering their goods online, the need for warehouse space and
logistics solutions is increasing all the time. Gross turnover in the e-commerce
sector overall grew by 12.5 percent in Germany to reach a figure of EUR 53 billion
last year.
“We’ll be able to cope with these developments by expanding our business sites in
2017. Compared to the store-based retail business, picking for the distinct orders
placed by online shoppers is much more individual and is far harder to plan. As a
result, we not only make available intelligent warehouse solutions for our
customers, but also expertise in IT and our own warehouse management system,”
says Christian Mahler, a member of the Rhenus Warehousing Solutions
Deutschland management team.
The overall area at the Eisenach site will be extended by 20,000 square metres to
a total figure of 60,000 square metres by the end of November 2017. The
warehouse, which was opened in 2012, is suitable for products up to water hazard
class 3. The storage space at the Dortmund site will be expanded by almost
34,000 square metres, enabling the total area to increase to about 84,000 square
metres. The building work there started in February and is due to have been
completed by the end of the year. The total warehouse space at the multi-user
distribution centre at Hamburg-Harburg will be enlarged by 21,000 square metres
to provide 52,500 square metres of space. This expansion work has already
started too and should be finished by the summer of this year. The facility is also suitable for water hazard class 3 and a broad range of hazardous materials, including flammable liquids. The site has been equipped with the latest fire-extinguishing technology to cope with this.