An Atlanta-based “co-warehousing” startup is preparing to open a 45,000-square-foot location in Alexandria, its foothold in the D.C. area, in an effort to tap a market of small- and medium-sized e-commerce businesses.
Saltbox Inc., headquartered in Atlanta but with locations in a handful of big metros nationwide, provides such businesses with professionally equipped space in shared logistics facilities that they otherwise probably couldn’t afford.
Think of an eBay seller, for instance, who might otherwise work out of a spare room or a storage unit. With Saltbox, that merchant can buy a month-to-month membership — technically a license, but it works like a month-to-month rent — for a customizable suite in a big warehouse. The membership also provides access to logistics-oriented amenities, equipment and services, like loading docks, carts, palette jacks, outbound package bins for scheduled pickups, a photography studio (for snapping items to post online) and building security. It’s not unlike WeWork, which does something similar with office buildings, though the analogy isn't perfect.
Saltbox is set to open its new operation Aug. 22 at 4700 Eisenhower Ave., a one-story industrial building that’ll now contain 85 suites of various sizes for warehouse and office uses. It'll be the company's sixth such co-warehousing site. Saltbox plans to expand its footprint to 14 locations nationwide by year’s end, CEO and co-founder Tyler Scriven said.
“We cannot afford to leave small businesses behind” in an e-commerce world, though there’s a risk of that happening, Scriven said. For instance, small businesses are likelier than larger ones to be hurt by ongoing supply chain woes, either because they can’t afford or don’t have the space to hold large inventories. Saltbox currently has more than 300 members across its various locations, half of which are helmed by women or people of color, according to a press release.
“Not just the Amazons of the world,” but everyone needs to be able to operate with “logistical sophistication,” Scriven said.
An affiliate of D.C.-based Fundrise LLC owns the Eisenhower Avenue building, having bought it in December 2021 for $14.1 million, according to public records. Saltbox will operate the building in what Scriven described as a revenue-sharing arrangement. Fundrise owns a couple other Saltbox buildings, and has also invested in the venture-backed startup, to the tune of $128 million earlier this year, as reported by TechCrunch.
Saltbox is "completely rethinking last-mile logistics and warehousing in order to unlock new potential in industrial real estate," Fundrise Chief Operating Officer Brandon Jenkins wrote in an email, adding that the real estate investment trust is "looking forward to more locations to come."
It's common to hear about big logistics facilities outside the metropolitan core, where land is relatively cheap, such as in Prince William or Prince George’s counties, but still within reasonable driving distance. But Saltbox’s new location is inside the Beltway. It’s in an industrial part of town but walkable to the Van Dorn Street Metro station.
The simple reason for choosing a site like this, according to Scriven, is that it’s nearer to where the people who run many e-commerce businesses live and want to work. It’s logistics with “human centricity,” he said.
Scriven has experienced the logistical challenges of being a small online merchant firsthand. In 2016, he bought a beauty and hair care business called True Glory Hair, which has a few brick-and-mortar locations, but now does the majority of its sales online. At first, he ran the e-commerce operation out of the back of one of his retail locations — “it was a real mess,” he said. He still owns True Glory Hair, which is now a Saltbox client.
