Exchange
or resale?

The three models

Under exchange the recipient returns pallets of equal quality. Under resale the pallet becomes part of the goods and changes hands with them. Under deposit and rental it stays the property of the shipper or a pool operator. All three are common practice; which one fits is decided by your own circulation.

Resale with added value

For resale, Falkenhahn AG developed a model in which the shipper passes part of the savings on to the recipient – for instance by subsidising the pallets. That makes resale worthwhile for both sides. A survey among customers of Falkenhahn AG showed that it pays off for the shipper in a good 90 % of cases, with savings of € 1.20 per pallet achievable.

What runs alongside an exchange

Exchange rests on agreements – there is no obligation to exchange. What remains is sorting effort, inspection effort, settlement charges, documentation and shrinkage. These items appear on no pallet invoice and are incurred anyway. Anyone wanting to quantify them will find the comparison in the calculator below; anyone well set up in exchange will equally see there how little changes.

The resale model was recognised as an innovative logistics solution by the German Association for Supply Chain Management, Procurement and Logistics (BME) in 2010.