What if you heard about a business that enjoyed double-digit sales growth every year? The good news is, if you offer warehousing services, there’s a good chance that you are already involved in that business.

Ecommerce continued its unprecedented growth in 2014, clocking a 13.2% increase in sales. And ecommerce’s share of overall retail sales continues to climb at a similar pace, rising 11.5%, in the year ended March 2015, to represent 7% of all retail sales.

So what’s responsible for the explosive growth? Oddly enough, it’s the customer. No one needs to push ecommerce on today’s shoppers because they are lapping up the convenience and forcing businesses, from Walmart to local distribution companies, to change the way they operate.

Warehousing companies are especially susceptible to the new demands brought on by ecommerce and, to remain competitive, they must do everything they can to stay ahead of the waves of change. You must be prepared for to fulfill new roles for your customers:

1. Multi-Channel Instead of Single-Channel – The ebbs and flows of retail are exponentially faster of the web. Ecommerce customers have come to expect that everything is “in stock”. It means your warehouse needs the flexibility to stock different SKUs and manage unpredictable volumes quickly to meet the demand.
2. More Transparency – Your customers need to have real-time knowledge of inventory and shipment schedules, and be able to act upon it. If you don’t offer it, they will go elsewhere.
3. Added Value – The more you can do for your ecommerce customers, the better. From product assembly to marketing and promotions, your ecommerce customers need it and if they find it with you, they are more likely to stay.

The speed of change in warehousing makes the future more difficult to predict. Perhaps the best characteristic any warehouse services provider can build is flexibility. Increasingly, the only constant is change.