Dark stores – a ray of hope for urban logistics?

Online retail has been booming like never before since the coronavirus pandemic. This makes last-mile solutions all the more important in order to optimize transport routes and delivery processes. Warehouse space in urban areas is one way of doing this. This can significantly shorten the last mile of the supply chain and save costs. However, as warehouses and logistics properties in cities are only available to a limited extent, other solutions are needed. Dark stores and abandoned warehouses can help here.

Making sensible use of vacancies

Vacant stores and restaurants do not have to remain unused. These so-called dark stores – distribution centers that only exist for online retail and are usually located in former supermarkets – are increasingly being used for logistical purposes. The term is derived from the fact that the large shop windows of the former stores are taped up for the new use. These warehouses in city centers offer the ideal conditions for making the last-mile delivery process as simple and fast as possible. It is therefore hardly surprising that it is mainly quick-commerce providers that have discovered dark stores as warehouses. Delivery services such as Gorillas or Flink are thus able to make deliveries to their customers within just a few minutes.

This also opens up the option of offering “click and collect” for customers – because the central location of the dark stores means they are also easy for customers to reach. If they pick up their pre-packaged goods themselves, this also saves time and money as there is no need for the service provider to deliver them. However, the proximity to densely populated areas can also prove to be a disadvantage. Residents may feel disturbed by the constant traffic and noise, which is why dark stores are often criticized.

Department stores become warehouses

The situation is somewhat different for vacant department stores. These are usually located in shopping districts and offer another option for the use of storage space in city centers. In contrast to dark stores, department stores extend over several floors and therefore provide a large area of storage space. They also have a number of features that are important for logistics. In most cases, they have a suitable room depth and ceiling height and also have freight elevators, which means that the conversion costs for a planned use are rather low. The central location in the city offers excellent connections to the infrastructure. In terms of sustainability, it also makes sense to use an existing building – this prevents additional land being sealed by new buildings.

Dark stores and abandoned department stores are therefore not only an excellent alternative to expensive new warehouse buildings in urban areas for optimizing the last mile. Through secondary use, they also contribute to the concept of sustainability, which is playing an increasingly important role in logistics.

Author: Verena Zieringer