Palletways members to see more benefits
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By Chris Druce
PALLETWAYS IS piloting a procurement service that could see its 100-plus UK members purchase anything from ofice supplies to tyres and fuel at a discounted price.
Chief executive James Wilson believes procurement services are likely to become a more common feature of pallet networks in the coming years, as the co-operatives look to leverage their enhanced buying power on behalf of hauliers.
“We can buy paper [for example] more effectively as a group than you [can] as an individual,” Wilson tells CM.
Palletways is piloting a not-forproit procurement service from its Fradley base with a team working with a sample of network members to see how best the pan-European company’s scale can be put to use on achieving bulk discounts. “Whether it’s recruiting people from agencies, buying stationary or electricity, I think we have a lot of skills that we’d like to cascade to all members. So when a member signs up they’re not just buying transport from A to B, they are buying a range of products.” Palletways already offers a warehousing and stock handling service, known as Palletways Fulilment, and operates a corporate sales team, which have netted clients such as the Ministry of Defence and Black & Decker.
It recently struck a deal with Sweden Post to open up the Nordic region to network members and in France, one of the international territories it does not directly run a network in, has ended a business relationship with Geodis and subcontracted CLL instead.