Pallets by trade

Door01

What each trade receives, ships and leaves behind

Three questions read any dock: what the trade receives on, what it ships on, and what it has to get rid of, and how fast. The answers differ enough that a request written for one trade often misleads for another.

Door02

Warehouses and 3PLs

A warehouse or 3PL dock both sells and buys pallets. It receives from many shippers, each on its own pallets, so empties pile up in every size and grade, while its customers want a uniform outbound stock, usually Grade A or B 48x40. The gap between the two is the work and the cost, and quarter-end and holiday peaks widen it. Edenvale, the Monterey and Senter Road corridor in San Jose and Fremont's Warm Springs hold most of these docks, where rows of empties also block racking aisles in space rented by the square foot.

Door03

Contract manufacturing

Every reel, tray and box of components arrives on a pallet that stays after the parts are used, and finished product leaves in small cartons on fewer pallets, so a contract manufacturer's dock fills with empties faster than any other trade's. Milpitas has a long record in the trade, with Flex its second-largest employer in 2020 at 2,732 workers, and Morgan Hill lists Paramit at 300.

A line has a rhythm, a count and a mix, so a standing arrangement fits it better than repeated one-time clearings: see recurring surplus. A plant with three buildings may have three piles, and weekend shifts may leave one on Monday.

Door04

Data center builds

A data center build delivers its equipment on pallets and in crates over a few months, then leaves one large pile that must go before handover, usually the fit-out contractor's job. The city of Santa Clara has more than 50 data centers, using about 60 percent of its municipal utilities' energy; San Jose requires a Special Use Permit for one, and Prologis has been named preferred developer for 159 acres at SR-237 and Zanker Road, a data center and advanced-manufacturing campus estimated at 6,000 jobs.

Door05

Medical devices

A device may leave a cleanroom in a sealed carton and still travel on a pallet that has touched a distribution dock, and customers inspect that pallet first: a stain, a repair or a smell can trigger a rejection. Sunnyvale holds the largest group of these makers, with Intuitive Surgical at 3,836 and Cepheid at 3,042 on its 2025 employer list, and Edenvale and Morgan Hill add more.

The sell side is small and clean: supplier pallets, usually standard 48x40 with the odd foreign skid, which sell easily if dry and unmarked and suit buyers who also ship to clean customers. Say whether they have been in the clean area.

Door06

Food and farm

Food and farm shippers in Morgan Hill and Gilroy need clean, dry pallets in steady volume, and a way to clear the broken ones after a harvest peak. Santa Clara County's 2021 agricultural output was valued at nearly $340 million, led by nursery plants at over $109 million and mushrooms at $79.48 million.

Crops arrive in waves. Forklifts move fast and boards break, and when a wave ends a pile of broken and mixed pallets sits behind the packing shed just as the next wave needs clean stock, so clearing the one and buying the other often go together. Stored pallets stay food-ready under cover, off the ground, with air between stacks and away from chemicals and fertilizer. See pallets for food loads.

Door07

Stores and small business

A store usually has a few dozen to a few hundred pallets in a back lot or storeroom. A retail store's come from distributors, so they are standard and mostly Grade B; a shop that makes something ends up with a mix from several suppliers.

Small is normal: give the exact count and where the stacks sit. A shop's back door is often a loading zone shared with the shops next door, an alley or a lot with parked cars, where a box truck with a liftgate can take a small pile and a 53-foot trailer cannot. Say whether a box truck can back up to the door, whether there is a forklift, and whether the pallets can be wheeled out on a hand truck or come down a flight of stairs.

Door08

The equipment trade

• Semiconductor equipmentWhat chip-tool makers in Santa Clara and Milpitas ship, receive and leave behind: skids, crates, foreign pallets and ISPM 15 export wood.

Door10

Keep reading

• Door by door: the South BayPallet buying, clearing and supply from Alviso to Gilroy: the cities of Santa Clara County and Fremont, and San Jose's industrial districts.
• Pallet buyers for South Bay docksSell surplus 48x40s, cores and odd sizes from South Bay docks. Tell us size, grade, count and how often, and send one request.
• Clear a pallet pileClear mixed, broken and odd pallets from South Bay docks and lots. What gets reused, what gets ground, and what a pickup request needs.
• Pallets for your outbound loadsSorted Grade A and B, combo, new, custom and heat-treated pallets for South Bay docks. Pick size and grade and send one buy request.