As Q4 quickly approaches, Director of Strategic Accounts Mark Hicks shares what businesses should expect in the coming months and how 48forty is uniquely positioned to leverage the data and insights customers need to prepare. Watch the video to learn more.
Mark Hicks is Director of Strategic Accounts for 48forty Solutions and has been in the pallet industry for over 20 years.
What factors are expected to impact the industry in Q4?
The biggest factor is customer demand. How is our economy rolling? Is the consumer going to be out there buying? That is a big unknown in 2023, as we've been in a very soft year.
We don't anticipate any huge ups or downs coming through the fourth quarter. It seems like there's a very stagnant market, so until cash becomes available and businesses start to increase and hire, where the consumer feels more confident, that's when you'll see a large increase. But, for the next six to eight months, we're just assuming that it's going to be, status quo, as the way it is today.
How does 48forty leverage data insights to prepare customers for Q4?
All of our systems are driven by pallet sales and retrievals coming back to us. This means that our system is designed to track pallets. For a lot of our customers, that's only one subset of what their business actually is. They might be really good at selling retail or shipping products down a supply chain, but they don't track their volume and number of trailers as accurately as they should. This is key because we are the experts at tracking pallets, trailers, and movements - and we get to feed them information that helps them with their decision-making.
How does 48forty best position customers for Q4?
On a quarterly basis, we always get in front of the customer with ready reports, and review past quarters/ the last year to see if trends are up or down. Each one of our sales individuals can monitor and tailor them to what the customer is looking for.
My team is going out there and making sure that either the general manager for one of our plants is meeting and scheduling a visit with the customer, or our national team is assisting. We are giving them quarterly information as well as year-over-year demand to help paint that picture and be able to forecast the activity that could be happening during the upcoming peak.