Small E-Commerce Firms Now Fueling Rise Of Industrial Sector

The development pipeline for the logistics sector swelled in the past few years as major retailers and other corporations retooled their supply chains and got into e-commerce in a big way, many taking down warehouses of 500K SF or more. But another wave of users is coming into the market: small startups that may have little or no brick-and-mortar presence at all, and which could fuel new construction for years to come.

“It’s lifting the whole warehouse sector to a level we’ve never seen before,” Cushman & Wakefield Executive Director and Chicago Industrial Group Leader David Friedland said.

ShipFusion, an e-commerce firm in west suburban Chicago, has grown rapidly in the past five years by serving such small firms, expanding from a 25K SF building to a 381K SF e-commerce fulfillment center at 365 East North Ave. in Carol Stream, Illinois, its newly leased U.S. flagship operation. The headquarters was completed by Dermody Properties in 2017 as a spec development, and ShipFusion officials said occupying a new building is key for their operation, which relies on proprietary software to manage the many clients and a large temperature-controlled space to ship perishables...