warehousing

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The activity of storing goods in a warehouse before they are distributed or sold.

   The retailer outsources its warehousing to a third-party logistics firm.

   Proper warehousing protects inventory from damage, theft, and spoilage.

   Similarstorage

   Note

   A logistics term for a whole function rather than a single act. It covers the receiving, storing and order-fulfillment work that holds inventory between production and distribution. Its value is the buffer it provides. Geert Mak's Amsterdam: A Brief Life of the City (1999) calls warehousing vital when storms, poor harvests and wars made supplies unreliable. Firms do, outsource or depend on warehousing, usually without a plural, though warehousings exists.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of warehouse.

   The distributor is warehousing seasonal goods in a facility near the highway.

   Crews spent the week warehousing surplus equipment from the old plant.

   Note

   The -ing form carries every sense of the verb, and each one is transitive, so it needs an object. Crews may be warehousing equipment, institutions warehousing people for years, or a firm warehousing something simply to keep it from competitors. That object is the quickest way to tell it from the logistics noun, which names the activity and stands on its own.

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