30 WESTERN PALLET
France: Collaborative Online Pallet Management Platform Looks to Eliminate the Inefficiencies of Empty Pallet Transport
A new collaborative online pallet management platform, MagicPallet, was officially launched this month in France. Described as the first collaborative platform dedicated to the exchange of European pallets, the launch follows a one-month pilot phase that involved 15 companies. MagicPallet offers the potential to eliminate the inefficiencies of empty pallet returns associated with pallet exchange.
Pallet exchange impacts 38,000 carriers in France and 600,000 in Europe. The cost of pallet returns in France is 100 million € per year. “Until now, the principle was that carriers traveled long distances with empty pallets to bring them back to their customers, the shippers – for example, for an SME of 200 trucks, the cost of pallet returns is about 200 k € per year,” stated Pierre-Edouard Robert, the founder of MagicPallet. “As far as the shippers are concerned, the pallets were not always returned on time by the carriers, they bought them urgently and at a high price.”
MagicPallet is now available throughout France. The company plans to expand across Europe at a rate of two countries annually. It will start in Germany and Spain in the second half of 2019, followed by Italy, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Poland.
The business is projecting a turnover of 650 k € at the end of 2019 and 3.8 M € by Year 3, with employment to increase to 12 people by the end of 2019, and 40 within three years.
The platform stands in contrast to proprietary pallet banking schemes offered by pallet companies in Europe such as PGS and Pooling Partners.