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Introduction of handling cost for EUR pallet (exchange pallet)

Thursday, June 16, 2022 - 10:40
eurpall

As of July 1, we are forced to introduce a fee of SEK 30 per handled exchange pallet, from the first pallet.
Customers who do not apply pallet exchange are not affected.

At the same time, we need to adjust the fee for replacing missing exchange pallets to SEK 300/pallet (previously SEK 180/pallet), due to greatly increased purchase prices.

For those of you who book freight on our web portal, it is therefore important to fill in the correct number of exchange pallets in the booking form. This is so that you will receive a correct price at the time of booking.

History of the pallet
The EUR pallet was developed by BT and SJ together in the late 1940s to standardize load carriers. This was so appreciated that during the 1950s it also became the standard for truck traffic in large parts of Europe and was then called "Euro-pallet" or EUR-pallet.
The pallet measures 120x80x14cm and is designed to easily load/unload goods with a forklift.

With the progress of the EUR pallet in the transport market, a working approach was adopted for the EUR pallets to be used not only for ONE transport, but at least dozens. A so-called changing pallet system. If you pick up goods on an approved EUR pallet, you must give the sender an approved pallet in return.
When unloading at the receiver, you must receive an approved EUR pallet in return (not after the receiver has picked all the goods from the respective pallet, which would have led to waiting time).

Basically, this is a good system, but it also has its downsides.

What is the problem?
Hauliers are forced to use their limited cargo areas to transport stacks of empty exchange pallets without compensation to keep the system alive.

So that hauliers do not have to constantly transport empty pallets on their cars, it has instead been customary for larger terminal operations to provide the opportunity for a so-called "pallet pool", where the haulier can return empty pallets at a later date.
For terminals, the downside of this has been that you take the risk of not getting paid as the terminal rarely has a business relationship with the individual haulage company, while it is a labor-intensive administration to keep track of which haulage company owes how many pallets.

During April-May, several terminals have announced that they intend to start charging an administrative fee for each haulage company that has a pallet pool with them. We at Transportören fully understand this.
At the same time, it is not the hauliers who should, must or will bear these costs either.

Even today, it is a big concern to persuade hauliers to load/unload exchange pallets as it means that the haulier has to transport stacks of empty pallets without compensation, as well as pay for the working hours that the administration of this entails.
If they are now also forced to pay fees to the majority of different terminals, we expect that most hauliers will completely refuse to load such bookings.

The handling fee we are now introducing aims to compensate the hauliers, so that they can bear the cost of these terminal fees and continue to keep the system alive.

Vill du veta mer?

erik-soderstrom

Erik Söderström

Gothenburg (HQ) Marketing Director, Sales

erik [dot] soderstrom [at] transportoren [dot] se +46 (0)31-705 07 73

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