If you choose to self-fulfil your customer orders, the total square footage you need to manage your inventory will depend on several factors.One is the amount of unique SKUs you have. For example, if you sell shirts on your ecommerce store, each size and colour will need its own storage location.
Two is your order volume. If you are only shipping 150 orders a month, you may be able to keep your inventory in your basement, garage, etc. But if you are shipping several thousand customer orders a month, you will need the space to scale your fulfilment operation and store excess inventory. You will always want enough extra inventory on hand to prevent stockouts.
Finally, you will need to understand your growth plans to ensure you don’t move into or lease a space that you will immediately outgrow.
Thanks to ecommerce, warehouse space is becoming more difficult to find these days. And it can be expensive to rent or purchase warehouse space in the locations where your customers reside, such as shipping to major cities. If you work with a fulfilment company, each fulfilment centre will likely have hundreds of thousands of square feet shared among ecommerce businesses.