What should a pallet supplier's website include? Mostly, the answers that set a price. A pallet quote turns on a short list of facts: the size, new or used and which grade, whether it has to be heat treated for export, how many, how often, and where it's going. So the page doing the most work on a pallet company's site isn't the photo gallery. It's the quote form, because that's where those facts get collected or don't. And the business worth describing is usually the standing program, the weekly delivery or swapped trailer, more than the one-off load.
None of the seven pallet supplier quote forms we read asked for all of those facts, and two asked for none of them.
Why is the quote form the product page for pallets?
For a machined part, the buyer's drawing carries the spec. That's why we advise keeping an industrial quote form short and accepting the file, as in the RFQ process.
A buyer of standard or used pallets usually doesn't have a drawing. They have a size, a condition they'll accept, an export requirement or not, a monthly count and a dock address. Those answers are the spec, and the price follows from them. A heat-treated custom-size pallet delivered across the state is a different quote from a #2 48x40 picked up at your yard.
Custom new pallets sit closer to the machined part: board sizes, species, fasteners and the load set the price, and the buyer often sends a spec sheet or a photo. So the form needs two doors, drop-downs for standard work and an upload for custom.
The rule of asking only for what it takes to price the job still holds. For standard and used pallets, that's five questions, mostly drop-downs. Collect them and the first reply can be a price. Ask for a name, an email and a message, and the first reply is a list of questions.
What did the quote forms we read actually ask?
We read seven US pallet supplier sites. All seven mentioned heat treatment or ISPM 15. One form asked whether the buyer needed it.
Five of the seven described a recurring or pickup program: scheduled pickups, drop trailers, buyback, build-and-hold. Two forms asked how often the buyer orders or how many they use in a year.
Three forms asked for a size, and a fourth asked only when the order was custom. Two were contact forms that asked nothing about the pallet itself.
No form asked for everything a price depends on. One of the most complete asked size, quantity, treatment, location, load and pickup or delivery, and took a photo or sketch. It still didn't ask how often.
The sites were ones AI answers and search results already surface, so they're probably better documented than average.
Which fields should a pallet supplier's quote form ask for?
Start with one question that sorts the inbound: buying pallets, selling pallets or cores to you, or pickup and removal. Pallet companies hear from all three, and three of the seven forms we read had a field like that.
Then, for buyers, the five questions that set the price, mostly drop-downs:
- Size: 48x40 and your other standard sizes, plus custom. Choosing custom opens an upload for a spec sheet, a drawing or a photo in place of the size.
- New or used, and which grade, in one drop-down using your own grade names.
- Quantity per order, in ranges.
- One-off or repeat: one-off, weekly, monthly, a few times a year.
- Delivery ZIP, or "pickup" if they'll collect from your yard. A published delivery radius lets a buyer see whether you serve them before they ask; none of the seven gave a distance.
Two optional ticks: heat treated for export (ISPM 15) and heavy load. Then name and email, with phone optional and your own number at the top for the buyer who'd rather call.
That's eleven inputs, eight of them required, plus an upload that only appears for custom work. It's longer than the five-field form in manufacturing lead generation, but every order question changes the price and most are drop-downs.
Do your grades mean what the buyer thinks they mean?
A form that asks for a grade only works if the site says what the grades are. The six sites in our sample that sell used pallets used at least three naming schemes between them: #1 and #2, A and B, and "Premium" and "Standard," with combo and core pallets on top. Three defined their grades. Two named grades without saying what separates them.
That matters because one yard's B can be another's #2, or not, and a buyer comparing two quotes can't tell whether they're comparing the same pallet. A sentence per grade fixes it: how much repair is allowed, how it looks, and what it's suited for.
What should the site say about heat treatment and the ISPM 15 mark?
ISPM 15 is the international standard for wood packaging in trade, published by the International Plant Protection Convention. Conventional heat treatment (HT) under it means the wood reaches at least 56 degrees Celsius for 30 continuous minutes, through the core.
All seven already say they heat treat. What an exporter still has to ask about is the detail:
- Do you treat in your own kiln, or build from treated, stamped lumber?
- Which of your used pallets can go overseas, and how are they marked? Say it on the page and point to APHIS's wood packaging page for the US rules. APHIS says a treated, marked pallet can be reused without re-treating, but a repaired or remanufactured one has to be treated and marked again.
- What travels with the load? The mark on the pallet is what shows it was treated. Some shippers also like a heat-treatment certificate with the bill of lading as a convenience, so say whether you send one.
Why describe the program and not just the pallet?
A buyer setting up a program isn't asking what one pallet costs. They're asking whether you'll keep up when their volume jumps, and whether the trailer gets swapped on the day you said. The answer is in how the program runs, so write it down.
Say whether you drop a trailer and swap it, whether the same truck picks up empties or buys back cores, and what happens in a busy month.
Program buyers are often warehouse or logistics managers who read a supplier's site for operating detail, the same case we made for logistics companies.
A buyer who fills in that form has handed you most of the quote before you pick up the phone. One who reads the program pages first already knows, before the other two suppliers they asked have replied, whether your yard can keep up.
