Logistics cost weighs differently in every company, and in a manual warehouse operation it tends to grow every year. The pressure to reduce storage costs is constant, but many companies attack the wrong symptoms. Before cutting, it helps to understand where the money really goes in a warehouse: labor, errors, inefficient use of space, energy and immobilized stock. In this guide we analyze the five major logistics cost drivers and how automation tackles each one to lower the cost per order structurally, not with temporary cuts.
Driver 1: Labor, the fastest-growing cost
In a traditional warehouse, a large share of the operating cost is labor, and the most expensive activity is usually order picking: the operator walks to the product instead of picking. Every year wages rise and finding qualified staff costs more. With goods-to-person systems, where the product comes to the operator, the travel disappears and the time goes into picking. How much it improves in your operation comes from the survey: it depends on the distance walked today and on the order profile. It is not about replacing people, but about making each operator much more productive.
Driver 2: Picking errors and their hidden costs
A picking error does not end when it is caught: it keeps costing afterwards. The wrong order comes back, someone reprocesses it, it ships again, and by then the customer already knows what happened. None of those costs show up in the warehouse budget —they are spread across transport, customer service and replenishment— which is why they are almost never measured. Automation acts on the cause: the system records every movement as it happens, and the operator no longer depends on reading a label correctly in a poorly lit aisle. What can be sustained as a result is an improvement in inventory accuracy, measured against a stated basis, not the disappearance of the error.
Driver 3: Poorly used space
Paying rent or depreciation for square meters that are not well used is a silent cost. A traditional warehouse leaves much of its volume unused, because it stores on the floor instead of in the height. High-density automation allows storing up to 3 times more in the same space, depending on clear height and configuration, and that often avoids a relocation or an expansion. Making better use of existing space is one of the most direct ways to reduce logistics cost per stored unit.
Driver 4: Energy and 24/7 operation
An automated warehouse consumes energy more efficiently: modern systems recover energy from stacker crane braking and operate in the dark (dark warehouse) without lighting the whole building. Moreover, by running 24/7 without expensive night shifts, the cost per operating hour drops structurally. In cold storage, where energy is critical, automation also reduces losses from door openings and staff presence.
Driver 5: Immobilized stock and working capital
Immobilized inventory is money that does not rotate. A WMS with real-time data improves rotation, reduces overstock and allows working with less safety stock thanks to system predictability. In Argentina, tax benefits such as RIMI allow depreciation in two equal annual installments and a shorter VAT recovery period, improving the automation project's cash flow and reducing the real financial cost of the investment.
Reducing costs without cutting capacity
Lowering logistics cost sustainably is not a matter of temporary cuts, but of attacking the structural drivers: unproductive labor, errors, wasted space, energy and immobilized stock. Automation tackles all five at once and reduces the cost per order permanently. With the tax benefits in force in Argentina, the return on investment accelerates even more. At STOKA we calculate the specific savings of your operation and the project payback.
Frequently asked questions
It depends on the operation, which is why we do not publish a percentage. What lowers the cost per order is the combination of four things: more orders picked per hour, fewer errors, better use of space and more operating hours. How much each one adds in your case is calculated with your data during the survey.
Not necessarily. The goal is for the operator's time to go into picking rather than walking, and to reassign staff to higher-value tasks, in a context where finding labor is increasingly difficult. The decision on headcount belongs to each company.
In Argentina, RIMI allows depreciation in two equal annual installments and VAT recovery in three fiscal periods instead of six, and Decreto 513/2025 reduces tariffs based on NCM classification. This improves cash flow and lowers the real cost of automating.