There is no fixed storage time limit: the horizon is set in the agreement and that sets the frame. The practical limit is economic. Cost grows in a straight line with time while the value of goods usually does not, so every batch has a point at which further storage costs more than a decision to exit.
Is there an upper limit
Any upper limit is set in the agreement, not in a rate card [[DO POTWIERDZENIA — ustalane indywidualnie]]. In practice we do not refuse longer storage, provided the goods are stable, carry no shelf life and do not require a zone we need to keep free for fast-moving loads. What we do refuse is open-ended storage with no contact: a pallet the owner has forgotten and does not answer questions about becomes a problem nobody wants to settle a year later. That is why at receipt we ask about the horizon, even if the answer is only that it stays until spring.
How cost grows with time
Receipt and release are paid once. Storage is paid in every billing unit until release. In the first weeks operational cost dominates, and after a few months its share falls to the margin and the whole bill is time. The model is set out in pallet-in and pallet-out billing. The practical consequence: with short storage it pays to optimise the number of operations, and with long storage it pays to question the fact of storage itself.
Stock without a decision costs the most
The most expensive inventory is not the one that sits long with a plan, but the one that sits with no plan at all. Stock waiting for a season has an exit date and everything else can be arranged around it. Stock left over from a failed sale usually has no date, and so generates cost without end. Companies with no UK warehouse hit this trap differently, as described in unsold stock in the UK. Companies that do have a warehouse hit it more comfortably, because the problem does not hurt immediately.
Goods with a shelf life follow their own rules
With date-coded goods the storage horizon is not a matter of agreement but of arithmetic. UK retail receivers accept goods with a defined remaining shelf life, so the real exit date from the warehouse is earlier than the date on the pack, usually by a wide margin. That is why for such loads we ask for batch dates, not just pallet counts. If the goods need a chilled or frozen zone, the same information sets the release order: the batch with the shortest remaining life goes first.
What happens to goods that stop being paid for
We remove nothing on our own initiative. Where payment stops and contact fails, we send an enquiry to the goods owner and, in the absence of a reply, repeat it with a stated deadline. Further steps follow from the agreement in place and cannot be described in general terms, because they differ with the arrangements [[DO POTWIERDZENIA — zapisy umowne]]. One thing is certain: any resolution needs either an owner decision or a contractual basis. A warehouse does not dispose of somebody else goods merely because they stand there.
When to move goods from storage into distribution
The signal is simple: once you release from the warehouse more than once a week to the same receivers, it has stopped being a buffer and become a distribution point. That changes the bill, because operations then dominate over time. At that stage it is worth checking whether smaller direct consignments from Poland work out cheaper, leaving the warehouse for what it does better: emergency stock and shorter lead times for a UK customer.
Three exits and the right moment to cost them
Goods sitting without a plan have three exits: return to Poland, further distribution on the UK market, or disposal with a destruction confirmation. Each has a different cost and a different break-even, and the choice depends on unit value rather than sentiment. We work the calculation through in stock in storage: return, redistribute or dispose. The right moment to run it is not the day the bill starts to hurt, but the day the originally assumed horizon expires.
Not sure how much longer the goods should stay? Write through the quote form with the value and release rhythm and we will cost the options. The warehouse scope is on the Milton Keynes warehouse page, and the service limits in what our warehouse does not do.
