Saltbox

WeWork for warehouses

Instead of choosing between owning a full warehouse or handing everything to an expensive 3PL, e-commerce brands could rent a turnkey subsection of a shared warehouse (shelves, forklift, software) and run it with their own staff. No per-order fees, more control over customer experience. Saltbox is the closest early attempt.

“And so Jay was basically saying like, why isn't there a WeWork for warehouses where it's like, you— they have the space, they have the building, and then they have, let's say, the like kind of— and a WeWork would be like the desks and chairs and meeting rooms and conference tables and whiteboards. In a warehouse, that'd be like, you know, the shelves and the forklift and whatever else. But you actually rent your subsection of it and you, you run it, you operate it with your own staff. And so they— and so you don't get charged per, per order that you're doing stuff.”

Steal thisBuild a branded chain of shared, turnkey warehouse space where e-commerce brands rent a subsection and staff it themselves, optionally layering a 3PL service on top.