Crate rental specialist Pluscrates is gearing up for a busy trading period as retailers place their orders for the short-term hire of plastic totes in the run up to Christmas. Many retailers have switched to this form of Returnable Transit Packaging (RTP) in recent years as a greener and cheaper alternative to conventional one-trip cardboard packaging, but problems often arise when their own stocks are insufficient to meet periods of unusually high retail activity.
Pluscrates says orders from retailers in the clothing, mobile phone and high-value electronics sectors have increased substantially in recent months, and in addition the growing popularity of ‘click and collect’ services offered by many supermarkets is expanding the market for RTP in the retail food sector.
Pluscrates introduced its nationwide flexible short-term rental service in 2012 to help retailers cope with seasonal spikes in demand for transit containers and is expecting even more activity this year as the economy recovers and shoppers return to the stores.
“We’ve found that flexibility is very important to retailers,” said Pluscrates’ Managing Director John Mitchell. “Customers don’t want to be locked into rigid contracts and have to second guess how many totes they are going to need weeks in advance. With over 100,000 totes ear marked for short-term rental this Christmas we can react quickly to meet the changes in demand so retailers don’t risk running out of totes or paying for more than they need.”
Pluscrates supplies a range of lidded totes with the popular 600mm x 400mm footprint and capacity options of 54 and 64 litres. With rental rates of only a few pence per day and no disposal costs, the trend towards RPT looks set to continue.
Pluscrates has depots in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol and Livingstone.
Pluscrates Ltd
John Mitchell
Tel: 020 8900 0321
Email: JohnM@pluscrates.com
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