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Warehousing and distribution firms are beginning to attract more interest from investors as demand for storage space nationwide heats up and competition intensifies among smaller players.

Warehouse operators are looking for ways to automate their operations to meet increasing demands for e-commerce fulfillment services and to compensate for what appears to be a growing shortage of workers.

The U.K.’s biggest online grocer hit a milestone this year: Ocado Group put together an order of 50 items, including produce, meat and dairy, in five minutes.

Amazon.com Inc. is experimenting with a new delivery service intended to make more products available for free two-day delivery and relieve overcrowding in its warehouses, according to two people familiar with the plan, which will push the online retailer deeper into functions handled by longtime partners UPS Inc. and FedEx Corp

Pennsylvania is floating a tax on warehouse services as a way to help close the budget gap, a move critics say could threaten the fastest-growing sector of the Lehigh Valley economy and force customers of third-party logistics providers to relocate to neighboring states.

St. Peters, Mo., could offer a property tax break of $5.84 million over 10 years to lure a large FedEx complex to the levee-protected Premier 370 business park in the city’s Mississippi River flood plain.

UPS will open a new package-handling facility in Edgerton, Kan., in November and will hire more than 2,100 seasonal and permanent workers in the area, the company announced Sept. 20.

FedEx has been shipping and sorting packages at its new Sparrows Point center in Baltimore for two months, but celebrated the facility’s opening by having officials cut a ceremonial orange ribbon on Sept. 20