Storing material with pallets and rack is a little trickier, but much more rewarding. Pallets allow you to pack inventory more densely and securely than lose inventory on shelves. Also, Pallets can be easily handled and moved by forklifts and stackers to get your inventory where it needs to go more efficiently than having a human move stock individually. Your company will succeed if you're able to move your commodity on a massive level, and that means on pallets.
Finally, pallet racking gives you more control over the performance of your warehouse. The term “pallet positions” is a quantifiable metric for how much inventory your warehouse can hold. When your rack system is installed, you will be given a pallet position number that you can use to determine your warehouse’s flow of inventory.
Example:
If you know your system holds a max of 350 pallet positions, and you know you’re shipping out 175 Pallets a day, you then know you're experiencing a 50% daily turnover of inventory. That way your stock purchasing and facility performance can be tracked with real hard data.
Long story short: Always store on pallets unless absolutely not possible.