July 24, 2009
Pallet delivery and the road transport business in the recession
In 1996 Jempsons joined a pallet network to offer their customers an effective alternative to delivering their small palletised consignments in the UK. The consolidation of freight on to trunkers bound for distribution centres like PALLETFORCE in the midlands dramatically reduced costs and gave customers a fast reliable last minute delivery service they had not experienced before. This lead the way forward for businesses to release cash tied up in stock holding.
The improved door to door delivery service, often with a self off load facility at little or no extra cost meant the time span from order to delivery could be with in 24 hours. The internet provided the consumer a wider range of goods at their finger tips at any time of day. The chances of success in finding what they wanted was greater than time spend hunting the high streets. All this had a huge impact on PALLETFORCE and networks alike and growth was seen at 20-25% plus for many years. However saturation with more networks and the recession taking hold pretty much brought growth to a halt.
Much of Jempsons pallet delivery service is consumer lead and the effect of the recession could be gauged quite early on having experienced about a 25% drop in movement since 2008. Where surges of freight was relatively easy to predict, apart from the usual Easter rush etc, the weekly/month trends were more variable, and lead us to believe that with credit not so readily available, consumers would leave purchasing until they had funds available or order last minute to obtain the best deal.
Naturally in any recession one looks at cost savings and we are no exception, making necessary cuts were possible. We managed to consolidate and carry out more direct deliveries instead of sending via PALLETFORCE reducing the need to cut back the fleet dramatically. We noticed whilst consolidating there was a natural demand for self off load deliveries and invested in two vehicles one with a Hiab crane the other with a lorry mounted fork truck. Since adding these vehicles we have notice a steady increase in their usage.