Of all the important decisions that need to be made in a business, the choice of which pallet supplier to use probably seems more or less irrelevant. After all, how much difference can there possibly be between one pallet supplier and another? Well, as it turns out there is actually a great deal of difference between pallet suppliers and the types of pallets they provide.
Why Your Pallets Matter
To hammer this point home, let’s talk about what happens if you don’t pick the right pallet supplier. Consider your average warehouse, something that businesses of all types need to make use of. Any business that needs to regularly move stock around the country, and around the various branches of that business across the US, will need to use warehouses as storage and transport hubs.
Standardized pallets enable businesses to stack and secure cargo for transport. However, a pallet that is built poorly or is old and damaged presents a serious safety concern. All it takes is one plank to snap and a potentially very heavy stack of cargo could come tumbling down.
Likewise, consider the importance and difficulty of trying to run a thriving and bustling business in the run up to Christmas. During the Christmas shopping period, there are some serious logistical hurdles for businesses to overcome if they are to ensure that all their stock is in the right place at the right time. No matter how well organized this is, if a business doesn’t have enough pallets then this will form a bottleneck in their production line.
So, while a wooden pallet might not seem like a particularly important piece of equipment, without it something as simple as loading stock onto delivery vans suddenly becomes much more complicated than it should be.
Before you settle on a particular pallet supplier, there are some questions that you need to ask, both of yourself and of any pallet supplier that you are considering working with. Making sure that you run through this list prior to making any final deals will enable you to avert the potential catastrophe of working with an unreliable or low quality pallet supplier.
Do You Need Custom Pallets?
Wooden pallets are mostly standardized, in some respects at least, by convention. Unless it is explicitly stated otherwise then it is reasonable to assume that a wooden pallet from any major supplier is going to be stackable and will be designed to have the ability to be lifted with a forklift truck. That’s not to say that one pallet is as good as another, of course, as their designs will vary in other ways.
Most businesses will be served just fine by the pallets that are available off the shelf. However, the market for custom pallets is just as healthy and has experienced the same rapid growth as the rest of the industry. There is a plethora of reasons that a business might decide that they need custom built pallets. Needless to say, the requirement for custom pallets is mostly driven by businesses that have unique stock that is unsuited to conventional wooden pallets.
Of course, there’s no sense in paying more for custom pallets if you don’t need to. There may be some cases where you can have cheaper custom pallets built, but those are few and far between. If you search for a ‘pallet company near me’ online, you might be surprised by how many options you have to choose from locally. However, make sure that they truly don’t carry any pallets suitable for your business before you splash out on an expensive custom job.
How Important is This Decision?
Most businesses use pallets at some point or another. It may be that the frontline workers never come into contact with the pallets, but both suppliers and businesses would have difficulty in distributing their stock without them. However, while pallets are pretty much ubiquitous in a number of industries, they are not equally important for all businesses.
Some businesses will be much more dependent upon pallets than others. Some businesses that ship lighter and indelicate items will be fine with any old pallet, others will need to ensure that they find pallets that meet fairly stringent requirements. When you first search for ‘pallet company near me,’ or a similar phrase, you will usually be met with several options. Some of these businesses might manufacture pallets themselves, while others will package their pallets with a logistics service.
Only you know what infrastructure your business has and how the overall structure of it is built. While you should obviously always look for the best when you work with other businesses, don’t spend money on things you don’t need.
How Will Your Business Benefit?
In business, everything you do needs to be done with a purpose – a business should never just tread water for the sake of it. It doesn’t matter how big or small the purchase you are considering, you should only be spending money when there is a clear and tangible benefit to your business from doing so.
The temptation with relatively minor purchases like wooden pallets is to simply jump on the first good deal that you come across. However, this is where businesses miss opportunities. As above, every decision you make in business should be a calculated one. It is only by thinking like an entrepreneur that you can seize opportunities for synergy.
For example, if you already use your business’s eco credentials in your marketing, then when you search for a ‘pallet company near me,’ look for one that similarly supports environmentalism. Our GreenBlock pallet is cheaper, stronger and much more friendly towards the environment than our competitors. Why settle for anything less?
What Specs Do You Need?
Once you start looking at pallet options, you will soon come to realize that there are plenty of variants to choose from. In order to pick out the optimal product for your business, you will need to know exactly what it is that you will be transporting.
Before you start your search for a ‘pallet company near me,’ take the time to ascertain the exact weights, shapes and other specifications of the cargo that you will be loading onto pallets.
The mistake that you want to avoid is not knowing the precise specs of your cargo and finding a pallet that looks like it should be ideally suited but is anything but. Looks can be very deceiving when it comes to your pallets.
Is This a Business You Can Work With?
In business, building long-term relationships is always beneficial. If you can foster a strong relationship with another business then you never know when you might be able to take advantage of it in the future. You should carefully consider what you are looking for in a partnering business as much as you look for things from the pallets themselves.
When you find yourself in need of pallets for your business, be sure to do more than just quickly Google for a ‘pallet company near me.’ Pick a business that you are excited to work with, one that shares your ethos and principles. If you want to improve your green credentials, check out our GreenBlock for the sustainable future of pallets.