At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, LVK—a fulfillment division of parent company and warehouse management system ShipHero—opened a third-party logistics warehouse in North Las Vegas spanning 200,000 square feet.

It now operates five warehouses across the U.S. and two in Canada.

Vegas Inc sat down with Maggie Barnett, CEO of LVK, to hear more about the company’s presence in Las Vegas, the future of the warehouse industry and more.

Can you tell me a little bit about LVK’s presence in Las Vegas?

When COVID hit, we knew we had to get in the warehouse ourselves. We had the technology, we had the knowhow, and we just said, “We really need to be more hands-on.” And the West Coast is so important, obviously, because between the Northeast and the West Coast, that’s really where all the orders are. That’s where all the people are ordering things in large amounts. And we knew Vegas was so important because, one, there’s a very strong workforce. Just with hospitality in general—that strong workforce drew us to Las Vegas, and the fact that it’s only five hours from the port of [Los Angeles]. So a lot of our customers truck their things into the port and then truck them, or we help them get trucked to Las Vegas. So all those orders come in via ocean freight (and then) get trucked to Vegas within five hours.

How does Las Vegas’ business landscape and even its location make it a good destination for warehouses like LVK’s?

Ten years ago, [then-North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee] saw that there was a huge deficit of $150 million in North Las Vegas. And it was like, well, we can tax people more, we can tax our current businesses, or we can create a new tax base. And [that led to] creating new businesses that were outside of hospitality, that needed space, that needed people to work them and were in close proximity to end users.

How do you see the warehouse industry growing in Las Vegas?

I see this sector growing because people want stuff for consumers in the U.S., where there’s a few things that we consume. There’s things that are made in other places that will get dropped into Las Vegas, then will end up with end consumers. … Vegas is so interesting because the old “what happens here, stays here” marketing campaign, they flipped that on its head. The different things that are happening in Vegas are very family-oriented, and it’s not just for people to come visit anymore, but to live. People want to live in Vegas. There’s no state income tax, and there’s such viable job creation there, because it kind of is this beautiful flywheel of, there’s space, there’s people that can go earn and really enjoy community.

What kind of jobs does the warehouse sector produce for an economy like that of Las Vegas?

LVK is almost 60% women. So a lot of times when people think of warehousing, they might just think it’s a whole bunch of guys on forklifts. But in warehousing, especially in fulfillment and high-touch fulfillment, there’s a lot of work toward the end of that packout. It’s for people who are detail-oriented. When we started, it was just the beginning of COVID, and a lot of the hotels had shut down. So the team that we grew came from hospitality, so they were used to working on a team. They were used to paying attention to detail. Working in hospitality is long hours, it’s attention to detail, it’s teamwork. Those are all things we need in the warehouse.

How else, if at all, have you seen the pandemic affect LVK and warehousing overall?

During the pandemic, tons of venture capital money and private equity money flew into logistics—into setting up warehouses, into technologies—and it was just like a boom. It was like this gold rush. And so many people overbuilt, overspent and got over-leveraged. And (the CEO of ShipHero) and myself, we always said, “Let’s be rational, let’s really only bite off what we can chew.” … Any package that goes out the door needs to be profitable. We can’t do this for free. And two-and-a-half to three years later, you start to see—wow, thank goodness we did that, because LVK set itself up to always be profitable and to get sustainable business in five, 10, 15-year chunks.

Is there anything you want to add?

Las Vegas does have this hospitality DNA, which is so important to LVK’s business, because it’s that merging of operation and customer service and customer satisfaction that has been transmuted into our other facilities, and I’m just so glad I was on the grounds during COVID. For the first three months, I lived out of (a resort). I relocated with a bag in my hand. I was supposed to go out there for a weekend—for basically four days to help get the warehouse set up and get everyone settled in. And I stayed there for three months. That was so important to LVK’s journey, because I got to learn firsthand on the ground from these hospitality folks what it meant to get good service—even if the person’s not in front of you, but they’re gonna be opening a box later. Putting good service into that box was really such an imperative for us to be who we are today.

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