The distribution of overseas warehouses in the United States has always formed a triangular balance around "port - transportation - market", adhering to three core principles: proximity to cargo import and export hubs to reduce initial transportation costs, reliance on comprehensive transportation networks to enhance transit efficiency, and proximity to consumer-dense areas to optimize final-leg distribution. Currently, the US warehousing network has formed three core clusters: the West Coast, the Midwest, and the East Coast, each undertaking different logistics functions.
The western United States: The first stop for Asian goods
The West Coast of the United States is the most densely populated region for overseas warehouses, with the core concentrated in California. Los Angeles, with its port advantages, has become an absolute hub. It is located adjacent to the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach, handling more than 70% of the Far East shipping cargo from Asia. The fastest direct voyage from Shanghai takes only 10 days, and the first-leg shipping cost is more than 20% lower than that of the East Coast. Warehouse locations are mostly situated in the triangle formed by ports, airports, and popular distribution centers, allowing for easy access to ports or airports within 30 minutes and major distribution nodes within an hour, enabling efficient connections for container pickup, container break-bulk, and transshipment.
Oakland in northern California is also an important node, located near the Oakland port and the San Francisco Bay Area, with a focus on radiating to Northern California and surrounding areas. Seattle in Washington State, due to its northern geographical location and lack of core distribution hubs, has a relatively small warehousing scale and mainly serves the local market in the northwest. The core advantage of the West Coast warehouse lies in its low first-leg cost and high customs clearance efficiency, enabling 1-2 day delivery to western coastal cities such as California and Washington State. However, it takes 5-7 days to deliver to the East Coast, and the long-term storage cost is relatively high.
US-China: The hub and core of logistics across the United States
Leveraging its central geographical advantage, the Midwest region has become a transshipment hub connecting the east and west coasts, primarily concentrated in Illinois and Texas. Chicago, as an inland port, receives goods from the western United States through its railway network and rapidly distributes them to the central and northern regions, making it an ideal choice for balancing distribution speed and cost. Dallas, located near the Houston port on the Gulf of Mexico, covers the south-central United States, with a one-hour drive to the core distribution center, and also has the potential to connect with cross-border logistics in Mexico.
The greatest advantage of the warehousing network in this region lies in its pan-regional radiation capability - it takes only 2-3 days to ship to either the East or West Coast of the United States, with the final-leg freight cost being 15%-20% lower than that of shipments from a single region. Furthermore, the warehousing cost is the lowest in the entire United States, and some states even offer tax incentives. Some node warehouses in Indiana, due to their proximity to core transportation routes, have become an important supplement to distribution in the central and northern regions, especially suitable for the transit storage of bulky goods.
East Coast: The frontier of the high-end consumer market
The East Coast warehouse focuses on areas with a dense population of high-spending consumers, with core layouts in New York State, Georgia, and Florida. New York and the surrounding New Jersey area cover 60% of the high-spending population in the United States, enabling last-mile delivery within 1-3 days. During peak seasons such as Black Friday, same-day delivery in New York and next-morning delivery in Philadelphia can even be achieved. Atlanta in Georgia, relying on the Port of Savannah, has become a logistics hub in the southeast, quickly connecting cargo transportation between North and South America. Miami in Florida, with its dual value of covering the southeast and radiating to Latin America, serves as an outpost for expanding into the South American market.
Despite the high cost of ocean freight and the 45-60 day delivery time for the first leg in the East Coast of the United States, it has become the preferred warehousing area for high-priced goods due to its proximity to core consumer markets. Although Boston in Massachusetts is a port city, its warehousing scale is relatively limited due to the presence of hubs such as New York and Atlanta in the surrounding area.
The core driving factors behind the distribution
1. Port and transportation linkage: 90% of container imports are completed through the three major port clusters in the West Coast (Los Angeles, Long Beach), East Coast (New York, Savannah), and Gulf Coast (Houston). Warehouse locations are generally within a 30-60 minute drive from the ports, and are also connected to railway and highway hubs such as Chicago's railway network and Dallas's interstate highway system.
2. Cost and time efficiency balance: The West Coast focuses on controlling the cost of the initial leg, the East Coast focuses on the time efficiency of the final leg, while the Midwest achieves a balance between the two, forming a "regional complementary" cost optimization system.
3. Market demand orientation: Warehouse density is highly matched with consumption capacity. Due to dense population and concentrated orders, core cities on the east and west coasts and the Great Lakes region have become priority options for warehouse layout.
Future distribution trend
As the cross-border e-commerce market matures, single-region warehousing has become insufficient to meet demand, and multi-warehouse collaboration has emerged as the mainstream trend. Sellers are gradually adopting the "3-4 warehouse layout" model, allocating inventory in the proportion of 50% to the West Coast, 30% to the Midwest, and 20% to the East Coast. This has reduced the proportion of cross-regional transportation from 100% to 20%, and increased the 2-day delivery coverage rate to 70%. Meanwhile, due to cost advantages and full-domain radiation capabilities, the warehousing scale in the Midwest and East Coast regions is continuously expanding, becoming the core fulcrum for balancing nationwide distribution.