With the growth of e-commerce, efficient storage of merchandise is essential. Automated Rack Supported Warehouses (ARSW) represent the future of storage technology, providing substantial savings in terms of cost, space, and energy with respect to traditional warehouses. However, there is still a lack of guidelines or design codes tailored to rack-supported warehouses, especially for seismic design purposes. Therefore, structural engineers refer to seismic design codes for buildings as well as conventional racks, without the guarantee that these codes are applicable to the typology of rack-supported warehouses. Moreover, due to the missing guidance, large differences exist in the design philosophies applied by the various manufacturers. In the scope of the STEELWAR project (Advanced structural solutions for automated STEELrack supported WARe-houses) current design approaches as applied in practice have been assessed. Each of the five rack manufacturers participating in the STEELWAR project was asked to design a double-depth automated steel rack supported warehouse for low seismicity conditions, employing their typical design approach and their manufacturer-specific structural members. Each of these design outcomes were asessed by means of dynamic time history analyses. Within the current paper, the different design approaches are compared by evaluating the simulated seismic performance. Focus is given to the observed failure modes and the hierarchy of criticalities, i.e. the sequence of potential failure modes. Differences between the several design approaches are highlighted and recommendations for an optimized seismic design are given.