Warehousing Location Decision in Northern Europe: Transportation Mode Perspective

Manufacturing employment has continuously declined in developed economies for more than decade time, but service sector in turn has significantly grown. Services also include warehousing, which connects customers and globally concentrated manufacturing units together. In this manuscript we examine location criteria for warehouses in Northern European companies (Finland and Sweden) as well as location of their warehouse network in larger Europe. Our research shows based on multiyear survey that primarily warehouses are established to have: (1) low distribution costs, (2) road transportation connection, and (3) assembly/manufacturing units are near-by. Currently in different contexts is being emphasized intermodal transports, railway connectivity, future potential of location as well as low labour cost are considered to have secondary up to quinary importance. In country level differences we show based on completed surveys that Finnish companies are more active in Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC), while Swedish companies have been extremely cautious with this regard.