Parcelforce Worldwide reveals details of Palletways tie-up

Parcelforce Worldwide has released the details of its contract with Palletways, revealed by Motortransport.co.uk in January.

Speaking to Motortransport.co.uk at the start of the year about the deal, James Wilson, chief executive at Palletways, said that many of the national postal companies across Europe struggle to deliver express freight, especially the sorts of heavy, irregular items typically moved through pallet hubs.

With the pallet network now providing collection and distribution services across 20 countries in Europe it has become “rapidly quite attractive to a lot of postal companies”.

In an official release today, Parcelforce Worldwide has revealed that the contract will run for three years and will allow the parcels company to offer a ‘one-stop’ shop for customers who want to send both parcels and pallets via its network.

Parcelforce Worldwide said its new pallet services are fully integrated within its online shipping system, allowing customers to book collections, run management reports, track pallets and print labels as they would with parcels.

Service options include morning pallet delivery, next-day and two-day. Customers can also choose Saturday delivery and same-day collection on orders placed before 11am.

Gary Simpson, MD of Parcelforce Worldwide, said: “There are many customers who want one supplier to provide both a parcel and pallet service, so we have partnered with Palletways who operate a high quality palletised network.

“We remain committed to providing customers with a parcels and pallets service to every postcode in the UK, and believe that Palletways are best placed to support our growth.”

Rob Gittins, UK sales and commercial director, Palletways, said: “This contract reinforces the critical role that pallet networks today play in the logistics mix and their growing use by businesses of all sizes.

“We will be able to complement Parcelforce’s own logistics offering with multiple pallet formats to support the differing freight profiles in today’s demanding marketplace.”