Nestable and Stackable Pallets: South Carolina

South Carolina, by road

South Carolina is a place where the Port of Charleston and the Greenville-Spartanburg inland port are joined by I-26. Pallets here follow I-26, I-85, I-95 and I-77, and the distance they travel empty is the cost a nestable cuts.

The counties with the most warehousing jobs are Lexington (5,481), York (3,009) and Greenville (2,870), which is 41.8 percent of the state's 27,150. It shares a land border with North Carolina and Georgia.

Warehousing in numbers

South Carolina reports no refrigerated warehouse capacity separately in the USDA table we used, so the cold question depends on the individual customer.

Reading the numbers

• Lexington County has 5,481 warehousing jobs, 20.2 percent of South Carolina's 27,150, the most in the state.
• York County has 3,009 warehousing jobs, 11.1 percent of South Carolina's 27,150, 2,472 fewer than Lexington County.
• Greenville County has 2,870 warehousing jobs, 10.6 percent of South Carolina's 27,150, 2,611 fewer than Lexington County.
• Motor vehicle manufacturing employs 15,531 people in South Carolina, 0.57 for every warehousing job.
• Motor vehicle parts manufacturing employs 21,585 people in South Carolina, 0.80 for every warehousing job.
• Chemical manufacturing employs 22,678 people in South Carolina, 0.84 for every warehousing job.
• Plastics product manufacturing employs 13,499 people in South Carolina, 0.50 for every warehousing job.
• Pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing employs 6,517 people in South Carolina, 0.24 for every warehousing job.
• South Carolina holds 1.43 percent of US warehousing jobs, about one in every 70, spread over 527 establishments averaging 52 jobs each.
• Charleston, SC accounts for 3,242 warehousing jobs, 11.9 percent of South Carolina's.
• Greenville-Spartanburg accounts for 4,575 warehousing jobs, 16.9 percent of South Carolina's.
• North Carolina has 54,551 warehousing jobs, 2.01 times the 27,150 in South Carolina.
• Georgia has 84,730 warehousing jobs, 3.12 times the 27,150 in South Carolina.

Who ships pallets here

In South Carolina, motor vehicle manufacturing employs 15,531. Assembly plants run closed loops with fixed footprints, and 48 x 45 in matches heavy-duty auto parts bulk containers. It tends to lean on heavy-duty stackable pallets in a closed loop, usually in 48 x 45 in, and to ask about the dynamic load for the heaviest part and the pallet's fit with the bulk container.

Motor vehicle manufacturing is the trade where South Carolina is most concentrated, at 3.7 times the national share of employment. A buyer in that trade will tend to ask the questions in the last column first.

The empty return

An illustration, not a forecast: if each of 527 warehouse establishments in South Carolina sent back 800 empty pallets in a week, that would be 421,600 pallets. The table counts the 53 ft trailers that takes at three makers' published nestable figures, beside the 540 per trailer of a rackable.

Next door

Metros in South Carolina with their own page: Charleston, SC and Greenville-Spartanburg.

Words on this page

Dry van

An enclosed, unrefrigerated trailer. A 53 ft dry van is the usual trailer for palletised freight.

UL

Underwriters Laboratories, a safety testing body that publishes fire test standards, including one for storage pallets.

QCEW

The Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, a Bureau of Labor Statistics count of jobs and establishments taken from unemployment insurance records.

3PL

A third-party logistics company that stores and ships goods for other businesses.

Nest ratio

How many empty pallets fit in the height of one: pallet height divided by nest increment.

Reefer

A refrigerated trailer or container.

Dynamic load

The weight a pallet holds while it is moved by a forklift, pallet jack or conveyor. It is lower than static because motion adds shock.

Last mile

The final leg of a delivery, from a local depot to the customer.

Open deck

A deck with slots or a grid, which drains water, sheds dust and weighs less than a solid one.