subject: Can I Get Short Term Storage With A Courier Company? [print this page] There are many services that are offered by most courier companies that go beyond simply moving goods for their customers. Many of these services are an important part of how the overall courier industry works, and storage is certainly one of them. For anything that is larger than a simple bike messenger company, offering storage will almost be a necessity in order to keep their business running properly. As a result, you can be sure that almost any courier service in Chicago that you choose to use will have at least some form of short term storage that you can buy from them.
There are many different kinds of storage that are offered by courier companies. Short term storage for small shipments is going to be the most common of these, because it requires less overhead for a courier company to offer this. Even moderate to small sized courier companies will usually have some sort of short term storage.
The amount of short term storage that is offered can be quite different depending on the courier company that you're working with though. There can be limitations both on the amount of cargo that you can store with a company, and the length of time that you can store it. This is generally because companies can only afford to keep so much storage space available, and want to provide all clients with its use when needed. Usually, this space is available on a first come first serve basis.
This doesn't mean that short term storage is the only storage available from courier companies though. On the contrary, many courier companies actually have entire warehousing divisions which they use to compliment their delivery services. More and more couriers are venturing into this area because it is such good business. It compliments their own services perfectly, and yet at the same time can actually represent a cost savings to their customers. Maintaining storage for one individual company is a very costly endeavor, and most companies actually find it cheaper to source out their storage needs to a warehousing company. Some companies will also offer clients discounts for combining their warehousing and courier services.
If you want to use the short term storage which is offered by your courier company, you should always make sure it is temperature controlled storage. Non temperature controlled storage can easily get hot enough to damage goods that you wouldn't even normally think of as being susceptible to heat damage.
