PalletTrader launched Oct. 20 as an online platform, designed and built exclusively for the sourcing, buying and selling of commercial wooden pallets. The company says it brings the ease, simplicity and efficiency of a common e-commerce transaction experience to what has been a fragmented world of suppliers and pallet “recyclers.” These entities have for years conducted business manually; typically by email, phone calls or fax, noted John Vaccaro, president of Bettaway Supply Chain Services.

Bettaway funded, built and is operating PalletTrader as an independent, neutral online business platform. The service is designed to enable and streamline the digital trading and sale of pallets in a collaborative, secure e-commerce environment, providing its user community with workflows and tools to drive new efficiencies into pallet supply and management, Vaccaro noted.

“Pallets for years have been a somewhat under-appreciated, if not disrespected segment of the supply chain, considered an operating cost and not a valued asset,” Vaccaro explained. “Yet nothing could be more important to the shipping of goods.”

While the majority of PalletTrader’s market is expected to be what are called “white wood” pallets, the platform can accommodate all other types of pallets as well, including those made of plastic, composites or other materials.

Vaccaro explained that the platform is applicable for small “Mom and Pop” pallet businesses, all the way up to the largest consumer products companies that use tens of thousands of pallets a year.

In addition to its open, public-facing transaction ability, PalletTrader allows users to set up their own private networks in a secure, permission-based environment, creating defined communities of specific customers.

For the first six months, businesses who sign up on PalletTrader will get the service for free with no monthly subscription. The only cost to use PalletTrader is a small transaction fee recovered from the seller and the buyer.