A warehouse is a building employed for temporary storage of marketable goods. It can be used to hold backed up inventory or as a simple distribution point in a supply chain. Warehouses are usually located at strategic sites near transportation corridors or nodes, and distributed strategically with respect to production areas and population centers.

Goods remain within their commercial distribution cycle while stored in the warehouse. Backed-up inventory and goods awaiting onward distribution are both included.

This differs from self-storage, where personal property is kept for convenience outside a goods-distribution cycle. The warehouse meaning specifically concerns a building used to hold marketable goods.