It also means that spare pallets take the most economical route from a retailer's loading dock back to a warehouse or factory that is shipping out goods.

FORBES: Beast of Burden

There, youngsters traveled hundreds of kilometers to dance all night in a field, an abandoned warehouse or a disused factory -- anywhere unlikely to attract the attention of the law.

CNN: IN THE GRIP OF ECSTASY

So behind that sleek new Apple iPhone whatever-it-does application are a bunch of software developers crowded into a brick building that 100 years ago housed a meat warehouse, a button factory, or maybe a flophouse.

FORBES: What San Francisco Real Estate Tells Us About This Technology Boom

But it is also local and fragmented, with most auctions taking place either at the factory itself or in an auctioneer's warehouse.

ECONOMIST: The new old thing