In response to Brexit, and the Covid-19 pandemic, the E-commerce industry has begun to boom exponentially. This has put an incredible strain on warehouse storage, as they aspire to keep up with the increasing demand for e-commerce facilitation.
Available warehouse space has now fallen below 50m square feet – which is its lowest level since 2009. This is roughly the same amount of space taken up by all businesses within the first 9 months of 2021. The current shortage of warehouse space continues to push the price up of what’s available, meaning businesses are more likely to overpay or even miss out on the opportunity for more space altogether.
So, what is the solution? Rather than looking outwards, many business owners have begun to consider expanding on the space that they already own. The best method for doing so is to consider implementing mezzanine flooring into your facilities. The purpose of this blog is to outline what mezzanine flooring is, how it can be applied, and the benefits you can expect by implementing a new floor.
The Benefits of Mezzanine Flooring
- Increases space
- Saves time and money
- Improves employee experience/order processing speeds
- Adds character to your building
Mezzanine Flooring for your Warehouse
Warehouses typically have very limited floor space due to an abundance of racking and shelving storage solutions that take up the majority of space available. By implementing mezzanine flooring, you enable yourself to better utilise the vertical space within your establishment, clearing up any excess congestion.
Not only does it tidy up your space but adding warehouse mezzanine flooring can provide real value to your property, as your maintenance costs are unaffected. As a bonus, you instead gain immense levels of increased capacity. This is highly beneficial if you consider selling your warehouse later on.
For large businesses – especially those that sell multiple departmental products on their E-commerce website – there can often be a disconnect between different departments, especially if their warehouses are situated in one place, and their office and administration staff in another. By installing a warehouse mezzanine extension into your property, you are able to circumvent this issue by bringing different parts of your business in closer proximity to one another. This can lead to improved communication and better integrational efficiency between departments, all contributing to a more productive workflow.
Office Mezzanine Floors
The office is often a hub for conducting meetings and creating new business. In such situations, first impressions are of the utmost importance. Implementing an office mezzanine flooring solution within your premises can help you to achieve that. Our office mezzanine floors are made bespoke and are highly flexible in nature. You could use one to develop a welcoming reception area for your visiting clients to relax in, or to create a sleek and modern boardroom to help set yourself apart from the competition.
There is an abundance of research into the correlation between happier employees, and their productivity. One of the ways in which an office can achieve this is to utilise office mezzanine flooring as a means of creating a breakout space for your employees to unwind. This provides a distinction between their relaxing space, and their workstation, which will in turn encourage your employees to have better collaborative teamwork effectiveness and provide them with a much-needed energy boost for when they return to their duties. You may also be able to provide additional toilets and washrooms also, which will further improve your staff’s level of comfort, and may in turn contribute to better rates of staff retention.
Mezzanine flooring in distribution
As the demand for space continues to grow, the demand for storing stock may begin to take precedence over everything else in your business. This often includes your business’s administrative areas, which get increasingly dismissed into smaller space allocations. Whilst the demand for storage is paramount, limiting the space for administrative work can have huge implications on admin employee morale, safety, and productivity. No matter how well-organised the rest of your distribution space is, if the people responsible for planning and operating the flow of goods aren’t able to work properly, then systems will start to break down, halting your business.
A mezzanine floor offers the perfect solution, as the administrative and office-based section of operations can be raised above the main floor space – providing your warehouse with more floor space.
Typically, mezzanine flooring is installed as a single floor, lifted above ground level. However, in some warehouses, the space available is sufficient enough for multiple tiers to be installed. In this case, the multi-level mezzanine offers maximum flexibility for managing a warehouse, dedicating a specific mezzanine tier to specific products. Allowing for better organisation, easier access to stock, and quicker operations all round.
Retail Mezzanine Floors
One of the features mezzanine flooring is highly revered for, is its level of customisability. Each platform can be designed bespoke in a range of sizes, styles and dimensions depending on your requirements.
Mezzanine flooring provides a retail store with the ability to increase their in-shop storage capacity. This is particularly necessary for retail, as such businesses often need to stock a variety of sizing options for each of the items that they display at a short notice, taking up a huge amount of the property’s floor space. Major wholesale retailers often take full advantage of additional flooring, particularly fashion shops and furniture showrooms.
Given the aesthetic importance of retail facilities, appropriate venues are hard to come by. Installing a retail mezzanine floor is therefore the ideal solution for improving the capacity of your venue, as it eliminates the need to move premises. Even after they have been installed, there is no loss of value if the vendor needs to relocate at a later date, as they can be easily dismantled and re-erected as desired.
Mezzanine Flooring with JUST MPC
There are an array of benefits as to why you should consider implementing a mezzanine floor into your expansion projects and storage solutions. No matter whether you are improving your warehouse, retail, office, or distribution facility, our mezzanine flooring at JUST MCP is extremely flexible and can be built, shaped, removed, and transported as you wish, for innumerable functional applications.
If you would like to know more about how we can help find the perfect mezzanine solution for you or have any further questions regarding the information presented above, then please do not hesitate to get in touch.