All over the UK, more warehouses have popped up in recent years, partly as a result of the rise of e-commerce and the need for more distribution centres. But how the goods are stored is an important matter, both as a means of maximising capacity and ensuring they are kept in the safest and most secure manner without sustaining damage.

A key question when it comes to choosing shelving is when you would use pallet racks and when you might opt for longspan shelving. The correct choice will depend on the items being stored, their size and their weight.

Longspan shelving, when you can use it, has the benefits of being neat, orderly, making efficient use of space and enabling you to access the items on the shelves quickly, which is very handy for swift distribution.

In many respects, it operates as a smaller-scale version of a pallet racking system, often storing heavy goods but having the convenience of being able to accommodate all sorts of items, including fragile items, meaning you can access what you need, when you need it.

However, the size and shape of some goods mean that in some cases, longspan shelving is not the ideal option and it works better to use real pallet racking systems instead. To understand this, it is important to consider the different kinds of pallet racking systems that exist.

All pallet systems offer advantages in terms of maximising space, organising the storage of different items and high levels of safety. However, individual kinds have different pros and cons.

For instance, selective pallet racking is the best for ease of access to stored items, but less efficient than others for use of space. Double deep pallet racking makes better use of space, but trades this off against a reduced ease of access.

Some pallet racking is suited to specific kinds of items. A cantilever pallet rack is ideal for long items like pipes and boards, but needs careful balancing and is not suitable for general pallet use.

For flexibility, adjustable pallet racking is very useful for handling different goods of varied sizes and weights, but requires a lot of maintenance and plenty of organisation to avoid being inefficient with space usage.

These are just some of the types of pallet racking, each of which have their pros and cons and in some cases are only particularly useful for certain kinds of goods.

By contrast, longspan shelving offers a similar form of storage with the same broad purpose of storing various items with the best use of space in mind, but on a smaller scale to take into account the different needs of some warehouses and the kinds of items that are kept there.

Choosing the right shelving for your warehouse is not always straightforward and it may be that different sections will benefit from different solutions. By examining carefully what your options are and what best suits the items you will stock, it becomes easier to work out if Longspan shelving is the best option for your warehouse.