We answer every enquiry, including the ones that say nothing more than "need pricing on 48x40, how much?". But that request costs both of us three days of back-and-forth, and in a rising lumber market three days is a real number. Here is what we actually need, and why.
One: footprint, length first
48 × 40 means 48-inch stringers and 40-inch deck boards. Reverse the numbers and you have specified a different pallet with different fork entry. If you are unsure which dimension is which, measure the side of the platform: the runners between the decks define the length.
Two: construction and fork entry
Stringer or block. Two-way or four-way. If you run hand pallet jacks, say so explicitly — a notched stringer pallet is four-way for forks and two-way for jacks, and that is the single most common mismatch in this industry.
Three: deck configuration
Top board count, bottom board count, flush or wing. Write it as 7/5 flush. "Heavy duty" is not a specification: we have seen it mean seven top boards, nine top boards, thicker lumber, four stringers and block construction, depending on who said it. A board count is unambiguous and it is the number that drives price.
Four: grade
A, B, Combo at an agreed ratio, or core. If you genuinely do not know, describe the lane instead — "it ships to a retail DC and sits on a sales floor" tells us more than a letter does. Most buyers ask for A and need B, and we will say so.
Five: quantity and frequency
Four hundred once is a different business from four hundred a month. A standing release lets us sort to your spec continuously instead of scrambling, which is genuinely cheaper for us and therefore for you. Spot buys get spot prices.
Six: destination and treatment
Domestic or export. If anything crosses a border, the platform needs ISPM-15 heat treatment and marking, every component must be debarked, and any repair boards must be treated too. Treatment specified after assembly is a re-run; specified upfront it is a scheduling detail.
The optional seventh line that helps most
A photograph of your product stacked. Honestly, this beats the other six combined. Nine times out of ten we can specify the correct platform from one wide shot of how the cartons tier, including spotting problems you have not noticed — bridging, overhang, point loads concentrated over a notch.
None of this is gatekeeping. It is the difference between a quote on Tuesday and a quote next week, and in this market that is sometimes the difference between two prices.
The four answers that tell us something is wrong
Some responses to those six lines are informative in a way the sender does not intend. We are not being clever when we probe them — each one is a pattern we have been burned by.
- "Whatever is cheapest." Nearly always means a lane nobody has examined. We will quote it, and we will also ask one question about the load, because a 5/3 economy deck under bagged product generates a damage claim that costs twenty times the saving.
- "Same as last time." Fine if there is a part number. If there is not, "last time" is a different thing in both of our records, and that gap surfaces at a dock six weeks later.
- "Heavy duty, to be safe." Usually means nobody knows the load case, and over-specification is being used as insurance. It is expensive insurance; a load case is free.
- "Export ready" with no destination. ISPM-15 is a global standard but destinations differ in how they inspect, what they accept on repairs, and whether methyl bromide clears at all. The country matters.
What a complete RFQ gets you that an incomplete one does not
Beyond speed, three things. First, a fixed part number, so the second order is an email rather than a conversation. Second, buffer stock — once we know your spec and cadence we can hold material against it, which is how a two-week lead time becomes forty-eight hours. Third, and least obvious, we start sorting toward you continuously. A grader who knows that 7/5 flush B-grade 48 × 40 has a standing home will set those aside rather than letting them go into general stock.
That last effect is why standing customers get better consistency as well as better pricing. It is not a loyalty programme; it is a sort line behaving rationally.
If you genuinely do not know the answers
Then say that, and send a photograph of your product stacked on whatever you are using now. We would far rather specify from an image than receive a confident guess. Half the specs that arrive fully completed are over-built in one dimension and under-built in another, and a photograph catches both in about four seconds.
Rosa, logistics · Pallets Recycle, 1113 Ingram Ave, Richmond VA · published January 9, 2024 · 805 words. Corrections welcome — tell us if we have this wrong.