News - Tagged: rental pallets

How to Guide: Simple Steps to Ensure the Quantity and Quality of Your Next Pallet Delivery

Increased price sensitivity and poor receiving procedures have conspired to create a perfect storm that is bad news for pallet buyers.  To the untrained eye or a rushed forklift operator, one load of 48” x 40” GMA’s may look just like the next.  Although there are many reputable vendors in the pallet business, our industry also has its share of suppliers willing to cut corners in order to undercut the competition and win a customer’s business.  Rick LeBlanc’s recent Pallet Enterprise article offers helpful pointers aimed to ensure the quality and quantity of your next pallet delivery. Continue Reading…

2012 Pallet Usage and Trending Survey

Each year, Modern Materials Handling conducts a Pallet Usage and Trending Survey.  The results of the 2012 study are summarized in Bob Trebilcock’s recent Modern Materials Handling article, “The Pulse on Pallets.”  In addition, MMH offers an hour long webcast that features comments from Trebilcock and Dr. Mark White, Professor Emeritus of Virginia Tech’s Center for Unit Load Design.  This post highlights some the survey’s key findings and discusses the state of the pallet industry in 2012.Continue Reading…

Online Retailing and the Future of Pallets

With the holiday shopping season just around the corner, economic forecasters are already trying to make sense of the numbers.  How will retailers fare this year?  Will consumer spending rise or fall when compared with last year’s numbers? When will 2012 retailer profit levels move from red to black?   Chaille Brindley’s recent article in Pallet Enterprise takes this discussion one step further, using the upcoming holiday shopping season to explore connections between the growth of online retailing and the future of pallet demand.Continue Reading…

CHEP and Big Box Retailers Make Presswood Pallets a Cost Effective Alternative

Jeff McBee’s recent article appearing in Pallet Enterprise offers a fascinating look at the impact of CHEP and mass retailing on the pallet industry.  U.S. pallet manufacturers and recyclers viewed CHEP’s initial foray into the domestic market with much trepidation.  As an international provider of pallet and container pooling services for retail and industrial supply chains, CHEP stood well positioned to dramatically change the pallet industry in the early 90’s.

The mid 1990’s saw CHEP’s domestic pallet pool achieving critical mass and a decline in white wood (non-rental) pallet production.  By the end of the decade, retail giants such as Wal-Mart and Costco had partnered with CHEP and abandoned their traditional reliance on white wood pallets.  The decline in new white wood pallets flowing into the logistics supply chain led to a corresponding aging of the pallet pool and a subsequent drop in quality.  Recyclers accustomed to hauling away used pallets at no cost began paying for their cores.Continue Reading…