Tatarstan warehouse logistics market: Realnoe Vremya overview
Coronavirus pandemic has spurred online commerce and changed the complex logistics market
The coronavirus pandemic has spurred the development of logistics market. With the rapid growth of online commerce, many projects of the new format are being introduced in the field of industrial real estate. They have become generators of demand for delivery services, including in Tatarstan, where these days have they announced the construction of three more logistics centres worth 9 billion rubles: the second stage of Ozon and new centres for Yandex.Market and SberLogistics. Besides, as it became known to Realnoe Vremya, one of the largest Russian cargo carriers, PEC, plans to increase its storage capacity in the 3PL category in Kazan by more than 2,5 times and in Naberezhnye Chelny — by 6 times. About new trends in the complex logistics market, plans for the introduction and expansion of warehouse centres in the republic, and the reasons for the logistics boom in Tatarstan — read in our material.
PEC is going to triple its warehouses for outsourcing
As it became known to Realnoe Vremya, PEC plans to increase the area of 3PL warehouses in Kazan to 7,000-10,500 square metres. Unlike consolidation warehouses, where combined cargo is stored before shipment and after receipt, 3PL warehouses are designed for warehouse logistics outsourcing services, for example, for online stores. They are used for configuration, packaging, marking of shipments.
“By increasing the storage capacity, we focus on the tasks of our customers: both current ones, which increase the volume of storage and handling of goods, and new ones," Sergey Kaverin, the director of the company's branch in Kazan, told Realnoe Vremya. “Besides, we plan to increase the area of 3PL warehouses in Naberezhnye Chelny from 250 to 1,500 square metres in connection with the launch of the new project.”
According to him, the company currently rents four Class B warehouse buildings in Kazan, located in the Privolzhsky, Sovetsky, and Vakhitovsky districts. Their total area is about 10,000 square metres. To provide 3PL services, the company rents a warehouse with an area of 3,000 square metres in the village of Stolbishche.
“The expansion of warehouse capacities in Tatarstan is of strategic importance for the company," says Kaverin. The warehouse expansion scale in Kazan is comparable to the expansion of such sites in Izhevsk and Krasnoyarsk in 2021 — new warehouses with an area of 5,800 square metres each have recently opened there.
Now, according to Kaverin, up to 25,000 pallets per month are processed at the company's Kazan 3PL warehouse. This is a multi-client warehouse that provides warehouse outsourcing services to 15 clients.
The interlocutor of the publication did not name the location of the new 3PL warehouse in Kazan, only clarified that it would not be built: “The company's practice, and it is present in more than 200 localities in Russia, shows that from the point of view of economic efficiency, renting a warehouse is preferable, rather than building own.”
Pandemic has spurred logistics market
“In any case, the development of such infrastructure companies is a good sign: the more powerful the infrastructure is, the more opportunities both the population and small and medium-sized businesses will have for effective work," he noted.
Gizzatullin stressed the role of the coronavirus pandemic, which “has spurred the development of logistics market”:
“The growth rate of e-commerce has become much higher, and it has become obvious that the logistics of goods in trade can be organised in a completely new way. Many projects have appeared that are generators of demand for delivery services. It is especially important that PEC is not just expanding — it is creating not just an additional office, for example, but warehouses that provide 3PL services. This indicates that they plan to meet the demand of small and medium-sized businesses for services related to storage, repackaging, preparation of their products for the requirements of the market, including marketplaces.”
Won't it be enough?
“Delovye Linii works in the same segment," added Ayrat Gizzatullin. “On the territory of Khimgrad, they occupy more than 8,000 square metres. This is a distribution centre that also works for transit cargo. There are SDEK, Magic Trans, and others. In our opinion, this segment will develop very actively in Russia.
In his opinion, in this case, the Russian cargo carrier follows the trend, but someone else will most likely dominate the market in Kazan:
“According to official information, SberLogistics plans [to open warehouses with an area of up to] 100,000 square metres in Kazan. Therefore, the PEC project, in my opinion, is more significant for them than for the market as a whole.”
“Do you remember that the Biek Tau warehouses collapsed on the M7 highway a few years ago? So, I really hoped at one time that just such service would be offered there, and not just renting space to commercial organisations for their warehouses. They missed this opportunity. This initiative is good because there will be new jobs, specialists will grow professionally," the broker believes.
However, according to Shamov, the cargo carrier's plans are very modest, in fact, Kazan needs much larger volumes of such services. He suggested that the boundary figure of 7-10,5 thousand square metres is dictated by that the company has not yet concluded contracts with major partners, and it is reinsured by entering this market — “they do not yet understand whom they will work with”. He also highlighted the problem that the company has yet to face:
“It's really hard to find a suitable platform if they want to do it at a high level. The warehouse must meet many requirements: a certain height of the landing stages, single-level floors, the possibility to work in all weather conditions, and if people will work in assembling — heated rooms.”
According to Shamov, such requirements are met by warehouses of class A and B+, whose cost of renting a square metre is about 450 rubles.
Three logocentres from Romex-Kuban
Currently, in the Tatarstan market, the closest direct competitor of PEC in terms of providing 3PL services is Delovye Linii company. Their presence in Kazan is also actively expanding. For example, in October 2019, a new warehouse was opened on the M7 highway on the basis of the already rebuilt Biek Tau warehouse complex, which provides 3PL services (the second in a row in Kazan). With the launch of this class A warehouse with a capacity of 4,500 pallet places, the company's outsourcing logistics capacities, which previously amounted to 3,200 square metres, have increased by almost a third.
Romex-Kuban PLC is also planning further expansion to Tatarstan, which built another 37 thousand square metres of warehouses for Ozon in 2020, in addition to the logistics complexes for X5 Retail Group with a total area of 56,8 in the republic. At a recent meeting with Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov, the company's CEO, Alexey Prokopenko, announced plans to invest 9 billion rubles in the construction of three logocentres in the Zelenodolsk district. We are talking about the second stage of Ozon and new centres for Yandex.Market and SberLogistics.
Currently, according to the press service of the assistant to the president of Tatarstan, Business Ombudsman Farid Abdulganiev, the developer is negotiating the construction of warehouse complexes with an area of 81,500 square metres and 41,200 square metres, and Novaya Tura is indicated as the priority site for their placement.
Calm in logistics market
“In 2020, warehouse real estate showed a growth in the segment of own logistics centres, which is associated with the creation of special economic zones around Kazan to locate the objects of this level," UD Group development company concludes. “As for warehouses for rent in Kazan (unlike Moscow), there is no growth in demand for this segment. This can be seen based on the reduction in the cost of existing facilities. There was a decrease in the rental rate by 4%.”
The company's analysts see the reason for the “calm” in this market in that “Kazan is going its own way in the development of industrial real estate and has become one of the leading cities in Russia in terms of the number of openings of its own logistics centres”.
Indeed, according to the company, in 2020 alone, the volume of logistics parks built for their own needs in Kazan and Tatarstan amounted to 103,000 square metres.
“The overall supplies of public warehouse complexes is more than 393,000 square metres," experts summed up the results of 2020. “The total supply of own logistics centres is 156,500 square metres, the vacancy rate of warehouses of classes A and B is 3,7%, which is by 4% lower than last year. At the same time, the vacancy in Class C warehouses is about 15% of the vacant space. The rental rate in class A is 383,5 rubles per square metre, in class B — 284,7 rubles per square metre.”
In 2020, almost all the announced projects were put into operation near Kazan and in the republic. Among them: distribution centres of Pyaterochka store, in Zelenodolsk with an area of 39,500 square metres and in Yelabuga with an area of 17,200 square metres, the logistics complex of OZON of 38,000 square metres, the first stage of the distribution centre of Wildberries online store of 50,000 square metres, the logistics centre for branded household appliances Pozis of 15,000 square metres.
“In Kazan, the level of logistics centres is the highest in Russia," developers believe.
According to the company, the largest number of vacant areas is located outside the city (3,4%) and in the Kirovsky district (3,1%) — despite that the total warehouse areas outside the city are approaching 250,000 square metres, and in the Kirovsky district — about 100,000 square metres. There are practically no vacancies in the Novo-Savinovsky district of Kazan, where the total area of warehouses is scanty, and 6,8% of the warehouse capacity, out of the available approximately 50,000 square metres, is empty in the Sovetsky district.