The pallet market has one reliable annual event, and it arrives in the last three weeks of the year. Retail distribution runs flat out, which means every pallet in the region is under a load rather than returning to a yard. Supply of cores collapses exactly when demand for graded stock peaks.
Why it is a supply problem, not a demand problem
This is the part that surprises buyers. It is not that everybody wants more pallets in December — it is that recycled pallets are made from returned pallets, and in December nothing returns. Cores sit in retail back rooms and DC yards until the second week of January, when they all come back at once and the market softens abruptly.
That is also why January is frequently the best buying month of the year, and why we push standing-order customers to build stock in October rather than negotiate in December.
What the squeeze does to grades
Under supply pressure, grade discipline across the industry slips. Pallets that would be #2 in March get sold as #1 in December, because the buyer is desperate and the inspection is cursory. We hold our lanes — which means in a tight December we sometimes have to say no rather than quietly downgrade what we ship.
- Reserve volume in September or October. It costs nothing to hold against a confirmed order.
- Agree a fixed quarterly price before the market firms, not during.
- Plan collections too: your own empties will be stuck in the same jam.
- Scrutinise December deliveries from any new supplier. This is the month grade inflation happens.
- Buy in January if you can store it. The post-holiday core flood is real.
What we do about it
Covered bay space gets allocated to reserved orders from mid-October, in the order customers confirmed. It is not a clever commercial strategy; it is simply the only fair way to allocate a resource that genuinely runs out. Customers who plan get the stock, and customers who call on December 14th get an honest answer about what is left.
There is no amount of money that converts into pallets that are currently under somebody else's load.
Written at the Meeks Blvd yard, St. Louis, and published on December 12, 2023. Markets and specifications move; if a figure here no longer matches what you are seeing, tell us and we will update it. Our model constants live on the Carbon Ledger.
How this was written
Drafted at the grading line from our own weighbridge records, line notes and customer correspondence. Figures quoted as ours are measured; figures quoted from the wider industry are labelled as estimates. Nothing here was written to rank for a search term, and we correct articles rather than quietly deleting them.
- Author
- Yard desk
- Published
- December 12, 2023
- Category
- Seasonal
- Reviewed
- Annually, with the model constants
- Corrections to
- sales@repalletshop.com
What to do with this
- Check the figures against your own invoices before acting on them.
- Ask us for the underlying scale tickets if you need audit evidence.
- Send the article to whoever owns your pallet spec — most of this is their decision.
- Disagree in writing. Several of these pieces exist because a customer corrected us.
How to cite
Yard desk, “The December squeeze, and how to not be in it”, Repallet Shop, December 12, 2023. repalletshop.com/blog/december-pallet-squeeze