Reusable Crates Result in Financial Savings

The Issue: Customer was using 50 one-way crates per week to ship automotive components at a cost of $89 each per week or $231,400 per year.

Traditional One-Way System

# Crates per week 50

Cost per Crate $89

Yearly Cost $231,400

The customer requested Quick-Crate® quote on a crate measuring approximately 40"" X 40"" X 40". The crate also required custom features, which increased the price.

Quick-Crate® priced the reusable boxes at $160. The purchasing agent quickly dismissed the bid saying he would continue to build the one-way crates for half the price of the Quick-Crate® system.

The Solution: To illustrate the financial benefit of reusables, Quick-Crate® provided the company with a sample crate. Quick-Crate® recommended the company have its customer cycle the crate. It took four weeks for the crate to cycle back to the customer. To be conservative, however, Quick-Crate® estimated a six-week cycle.

To make the system work, Quick-Crate® needed to supply the company with six weeks of crates (6 weeks X 50 crates = 300 crates total). This allowed the client to ship 50 crates per week with the first shipment returning four to five weeks later. Assuming the crates cycled every four to six weeks, there would be no need to purchase more crates. Instead of buying 2600 one-way crates per year at a cost of $231,400 the client only had to purchase 300 Quick-Crates (300 crates x $160 = $48,000).

There was the additional cost of collapsing the crates and shipping them back to the factory. This was estimated at $12 per crate for handling and return freight for a total of $31,200 (50 boxes per week x 52 weeks per year x $12 return = $31,200). Adding the initial cost of $48,000 to the return cost of $31,200 gave a total annual cost of $79,200.

The Quick-Crate® System

# of Crates Needed	Cost per Crate	Total Crate Cost	Cost of Collapsing & Returning	Yearly Cost
300	$160	$48,000	$31,200	$79,200

Results: Based on the initial price, Quick-Crate's customer originally thought the system was twice as expensive as the crates the client was building. In reality, the Quick-Crate® system saved the client nearly 66 percent of its annual crating budget.

The Quick-Crate® Advantage

Cost of One-Way System	Cost of Quick-Crate® System	First Year Savings
$231,400	$79,200	$152,200

In year two, the clients cost dropped to approximately $40,000 saving nearly 83 percent of the total budget. In addition to the up front savings, the customer cut even more overhead by closing its carpentry shop.

Please contact us today about ordering Quick-Crates for your office or business.