Whether as private consumers or as companies, we all like to get the best possible price, but without sacrificing service quality for it. We may think that a shipment is no more than moving merchandise from point A to point B, and that its cost will be approximately the same regardless of one factor or another, but we would be wrong. In something, moreover, that would end up costing us money. To send pallets at the best price there are a number of things, from the simplest to some more complex, that can make a big difference in the final invoice.
Three tricks to send pallets at the best price
Information is power… and savings
Knowing all the necessary information for the shipment and providing it to your logistics operator will be of great help. Does the shipment require any additional service such as depalletization? What time is the destination? Is it in an area with also limited access? Do you have telephone numbers and contact persons to avoid failed deliveries and the possible costs of a second delivery?
But default information can be counterproductive
At the other extreme we find those cases in which, out of habit or by default, customers add tags to shipments but that do not correspond to reality. Here we find contracted delivery services such as express, but they are not really in a hurry, fillers such as “deliver with a hatch”, when the destination actually has a dock for unloading, etc.
This last case, for example, can mean a very big change in how a shipment is managed, especially if there are many pallets. Trailers are very rarely going to have a hatch. So if we request it for a delivery, the most common thing will be that our supplier has to use a trailer to a nearby point and from there hire one or more smaller truck trips, or use pallet distribution networks, which are usually designed to pallet deliveries in small groups. In any case, the costs would rise significantly.
Start from scratch to send pallets at the best price
This is the method that involves the most effort and difficulties, but precisely for this reason it may be the one that leads you to achieve the most significant savings. Have you ever stopped to think why in large stores the merchandise seems to fit magically on the pallets, taking advantage of all their space? Obviously, it is not a coincidence.
Large manufacturers, from the design and manufacturing process of the product, always keep this optimization in mind for transport. Since they are very aware of the amount of money that translates into.
To achieve this optimization you must keep in mind what are the standard transport measures. For example, those of the most used pallets: European (120 x 80 cm) and American (120 x 100 cm) or the width of the trucks (just over 240 cm, which matches the dimensions of the pallets -3 units per the 80 cm one in the case of the European or 2 units for the 120 cm side in both types-).