Survey Says: Wooden Pallets Dominate

​A stunning 95% of the companies that use pallets choose wood. That's according to the 12th Annual Pallet Report released last month by Modern Materials Handling.

Now, that's not to say companies exclusively use wood. 31% of survey respondents use plastic and another 17% reported using wood composite, for example. But, clearly, pallets made from wood still hold a commanding lead for transporting goods. 

Many companies take a hybrid approach when selecting a pallet material based on various factors including destination.

Study Conclusions

The 2022 Pallet Market Evaluation was conducted by Peerless Research Group on behalf of Modern Materials Handling. We're highlighting the results of three additional survey questions:
  

1. New vs Used
   Results for 2022 showed 72% of respondents purchased used wood pallets while 54% went with new. In this same section, only 8% checked the box for pallet pooling. Pooling is continuing a downward trend from its high of 24% in 2020.
     
2. Procuring Used Pallets
   Uh oh... some not-so-good experiences for 2022. More than half (56%) say they had trouble getting their hands on used wooden pallets. Not surprisingly, 40% also noted that prices are up. And, short supply drove 44% to report the quality of used pallets has been worse.
     
3. Exporting
   When asked what companies do differently when shipping internationally, 49% said they have their wooden pallets treated for export. Some use the wood pallets they already own (24%) while 19% don't make any changes from domestic shipments. Another 19% reported making the switch to plastic, corrugated, pressed wood or metal (alternatives to meeting ISPM-15 export regulations).

Room for Improvement

While the study results were mostly consistent with our own experiences, we couldn't help but notice missed opportunities for survey respondents to save money.

A whopping 62% said they were not interested in getting help to better understand optimal pallet and transport packaging combinations. Another 27% said they were only somewhat interested. When it came to saving money with pallet retrieval and recovery systems, 58% reported not being interested and 16% had not even heard of it. 

Being open to change has saved our customers millions. Everything from transforming over-engineered legacy pallets to optimizing (or returning) packaging has improved the bottom line - significantly.

Are you ready to answer "very interested" for learning how to improve your pallet system? Get in touch today or post a response in the comments below.

Post by: Rich Reiher, Vice President