Warehouse

[David]

We are considering adding a new building type: Warehouse

A warehouse’s inventory unit’s size is 3 times larger than a normal inventory unit in other firm types.


Any feedback is welcome.

[Keither]

Great idea but I don't think there is a demand for it. If players could rent out their warehouses/storages then this is a new industry.

[Otrex]

It might work, but just be certain that you can do various things from the warehouse. For example, I would suggest "Private Labeling" as an option since that one is tough to fit in anywhere else.

Warehouses would also be useful if they allowed you to import products from other cities at a lower freight rate than without a warehouse. This would help to simulate moving HUGE shipments of products in and the shipping savings it would provide versus a retail store simply stocking something from a different city on an as-needed basis (since they would have less inventory space than a warehouse).

To this end, it might also be helpful to have warehouses be able to offer items for sale that are imported from elsewhere. For example, if Company A wants to order a sweater from Company B several hundred miles away, it might cost them $10 + $5 shipping. The warehouse for company C happens to reside in the same city as company A, and THEY can get it into their warehouse for $10 + $1.50 shipping. They can then sell the product for $13, plus local shipping of $1 (as an example), and Company A gets the product for $1 less, but Company C also makes a tidy profit. Company B gets paid the same amount either way, so they don't care.

To ensure no cheating on behalf of the warehouse owner, larger blocks of purchases would be mandatory, with each little square representing perhaps double what it would represent for a store. This would ensure that you couldn't just order tiny quantities of something in order to experience the shipping savings.

You could even take this one step further and have warehouses be able to sign purchase agreements via a "Contract Unit" or "Purchaser" placed inside the warehouse. In the above example, Company C could contact company B and agree to purchase 1 million sweaters, but at a price that is 15% less than the current price. Once agreed the transfer begins, and Company C must follow-through on the purchase (i.e. it CAN'T be "stopped" until the minimum contract is attained). Company C gets to make a few extra dollars profit by having purchased in bulk.

I hope that's helpful. Feel free to contact me if I can be of any further assistance (yes, I am an economist!).

[Jan Magne]

I'm all for warehouses. Here is what I wrote about warehouses in the "Suggestions from players" thread:

Possible to build warehouses to solve the issue of manually having to load balance between multiple large factories all producing the same product. You might have a number of large factories all producing cars in the same area. As you build more automobile outlets you have to carefully balance which factory each of them purchase their cars from to ensure optimal utilization across all the factories and a steady stream of cars to all locations. Supply problems and other issues that cause fluctuations in the production flow of one specific car factory means that you have to manually switch around some or all of the automobile outlets that purchase from this factory. A warehouse could be a special purpose factory-like firm that only allow purchase, inventory, labelling and sales units and those units have extremely high throughput.

1. Does a larger sized inventory unit mean both increased throughput and storage capacity?
2. Will sales and purchasing units have increased throughput as well?

Otrex's idea with bulk purchases to save shipping costs would be awesome to have as well.

[Viswan]

David,

I looking forward for this in the add-on.

In addition, would like to see more dynamics in the management of a firm. Would like to see some of the below features, if possible
- Negotiation features with suppliers. Like price agreement for a period, etc
- New products, resources and crops
- Partnerships agreements with other firms
- service levels and customer satisfaction
- more functionality on logistics like mode of transport, cost, partnership with logistics firms etc

I am looking forward for the next release of Capitalism.

Thanks,
VN

[johnne]

i like this add-on because some times the price of products are extremely low, than i can buy this items and store them.
if than the prices went up than i can sell if for a lott of money.

sorry for that bad english, i come from the netherlands and i am 13 years old

[Viswan]

David,
I hope you are designing this warehouse as a Building unit like retail stores or firm.. not like a purchasing or inventory unit inside a firm.

I would also like to use this warehouse unit for both... finished goods and raw materials

Hope this helps.

Regards,
VN

[David]

We have reduced the freight costs.

For details, see viewtopic.php?f=7&t=73

As such, do you still see a demand for warehouse units?

And do you prefer just introducing warehouse units, or introducing both warehouse as a new firm type and warehouse units?

[Vampire]

Good idea implement the warehouse and make it so that you can use it for multiple purposes. Renting or using it normally.

[kazenorin]

I always don't understand why factories can't perform private labeling for sales in retail?
Why must retail stores do the labeling?

I thought that was a fairly common practice, the OEM concept...