What's the difference between CHEP and Loscam?

Both are Australian pallet pooling operators offering hired pallets on a similar model. Specific commercial terms and account arrangements should be confirmed directly with each provider rather than assumed to be identical — see CHEP set directly against Loscam for that comparison.

Why would I use pooled pallets instead of buying my own?

It avoids the cost of buying, storing, repairing and disposing of pallets directly, and gives a consistent pallet standard, at the cost of an ongoing hire cost and an account that needs active management.

How do pallet losses actually happen?

Mostly through untracked transfers, a pallet leaving the site with a customer's stock and never being logged as returned to the pool, rather than through any single dramatic loss event.

Can pallet tracking be folded into normal stocktake processes?

Yes, and it usually should be. Treating pallets as a counted asset inside existing cycle counting is more reliable than a separate annual reconciliation.

Pallet Pooling: Hire, Transfers, Losses and the Account Surprise

CHEP and Loscam are the two pallet pooling operators active in Australia, and both work on the same basic idea: you hire a pallet rather than own it, and it moves through the supply chain and comes back, in theory. The account reconciliation is where most businesses get their first unpleasant surprise.

Last updated 2026-08-23

Hire versus whitewood

A whitewood pallet is bought outright, owned, and stays wherever the business puts it until it wears out or is deliberately disposed of. A pooled pallet from CHEP or Loscam is hired: the business pays for its use while stock is on it and is expected to return an equivalent pallet to the pool rather than keep the specific one. The appeal is not having to buy, store, repair or dispose of pallets directly, and having a consistent, quality-controlled pallet moving through the chain.

The trade-off is that a hired pallet only makes sense if the business's trading partners are also using the same pooling scheme, or if there's a reliable process for exchanging pool pallets for whitewood ones at the dock. A business trading mostly outside the pool ends up either accumulating pool pallets it can't easily return or losing them into partners' own yards, and every pallet sitting in the wrong place is also occupying a storage position that could otherwise hold stock.

Transfers and where the friction actually is

The theory is a clean exchange at every dock: the receiver hands back an equivalent empty pallet for every full one they take. In practice, transfers get logged inconsistently, especially at busy receiving docks where the paperwork is the last priority of a rushed unload. Every unlogged transfer is a pallet the pooling operator's records say you still hold, whether or not it's actually still on your site.

For a business using a 3PL to handle part of its flow, pallet account visibility gets even harder, because transfers are now happening at a site the business doesn't directly control. This is a process problem as much as a physical one, and it responds to the same fix as most stock accuracy problems: a scan or signed transfer record at the point pallets actually change hands, rather than a monthly estimate reconciled after the fact.

Losses and why the account surprises people

Pallets get damaged, get used for something other than their intended purpose, or simply don't come back, sent onward with a customer's stock and never returned to the pool. None of that shows up as a cost at the time it happens. It shows up later, as an invoice or account reconciliation for pallets the operator's records say the business holds but can't produce.

The size of the surprise scales with how loosely transfers have been tracked, which is usually a function of how busy the site is and how much scanning or manual logging discipline has actually been enforced day to day, not a reflection of how careful the business is in general.

Managing the account

The practical fix is treating pallet transfers as a stock movement worth tracking with the same discipline as the goods on them, ideally inside the same counting cycle rather than as a separate annual reconciliation exercise. A system that already tracks locations can often be extended to track pallet accounts too, rather than running a separate spreadsheet alongside it.

For a business moving high volumes through standard selective racking with straightforward pallet-in, pallet-out flow, this is usually a process fix rather than a systems one. For a business using pallet jacks and walkies across a large, busy dock, the transfer discipline needs to be built into the handling process itself, not bolted on afterward.

Common questions

What's the difference between CHEP and Loscam?: Both are Australian pallet pooling operators offering hired pallets on a similar model. Specific commercial terms and account arrangements should be confirmed directly with each provider rather than assumed to be identical — see CHEP set directly against Loscam for that comparison.
Why would I use pooled pallets instead of buying my own?: It avoids the cost of buying, storing, repairing and disposing of pallets directly, and gives a consistent pallet standard, at the cost of an ongoing hire cost and an account that needs active management.
How do pallet losses actually happen?: Mostly through untracked transfers, a pallet leaving the site with a customer's stock and never being logged as returned to the pool, rather than through any single dramatic loss event.
Can pallet tracking be folded into normal stocktake processes?: Yes, and it usually should be. Treating pallets as a counted asset inside existing cycle counting is more reliable than a separate annual reconciliation.

Part of our guide to warehouse efficiency.