Palletways hits target
Palletways now has 27 members a week feeding freight into the international service that it launched in January.
European development manager John McCormick says the number is growing all the time. The present single-deck trunk to Nijmegen is running at capacity and he predicted that not only a second but also a third trunk will be introduced by Easter.
Palletways is considering adding a double-decker, although it willl have to meet Dutch height limits.
Growth of the service is meeting what were challenging targets, he said. “Ten to 15” members already had their own international services and use Palletways only for top-up, if at all; the other 85 members – the vast majority – had never had an international product to sell, he says.
Palletways has provided strong support in telemarketing and mail shots, or marketing collateral, and it is hard to say how much of the traffic has been generated from the centre and how much sold by the individual members.
Under the Palletways system, members must make deliveries in their own area but can sell their own retail rate anywhere, both on international and domestic traffic.
Industry sources suggest some of the traffic comes from DHL and TNT, which have relatively high charges for low-volume customers.
The largest volumes through the Nijmegen hub are currently going to Germany and the Netherlands, with Belgium, Luxembourg and Denmark also served, he says.
The success of the Palletways system is because it has an established network. Input volumes are roughly matching exports, McCormick says.
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