Salt Lake Tribune | 1919-12-28 | Page 34 | 'Ship by Truck' Aids Merchants

'SHIP 8? TRUCK' ,1S Kit !IS Grand Rapids Wholesalers Transport Over 170,000 Pounds Daily. What "ship by truck" can mean to wholesalers is weU illustrated in Grand itankls, Mt'-h., whore its nineteen routes, ! operating thirty-two motor trucks, have i the staunch support of wholesale dealers j in fruits, groceries and drug's. Those ! Grand Rapids dealers are backing "ship by truck" because, by speeding their consignments con-signments to neighboring wiuliigan towns, it permits them to compete with Milwaukee Mil-waukee wholesalers. Last spring the Grand Rapids men found that tiie .Milwaukee wholesalers were making substantial inroads on their business. Lake transportation was making mak-ing it possible for the Wisconsin dealers to get their shipments into the territory more quickly than could the Grand Kapids houses. Tliev were sending it into tne .Michigan port cities that had the best I railroad facilities, and it was being speeded speed-ed along to its destination with little de-! de-! lay. Grand Rapids dealers, dependent entirely en-tirely upon the railroad, were not so for-1 for-1 tunalo in obtaining quick deliveries. Tnen I the ship by truck idea came along, they adopted it, and now they claim they are tar outdistancing their rivals. In Grand Rapids "ship by truck" operates op-erates through a central terminal. This terminal, which was fostered by the local Firestone ship by truck bureau, operates under the name of the Associated Truck lanes of Grand Rapids. It was started in June, 11)111. By the first of the following follow-ing September it had outgrown its original orig-inal quarters and was forced to move to a larger place. Today more than 170,000 pounds of freight is leaving its two ioad-i ioad-i ing platforms daily. Incoming freight representing return loads is 60 per cent as great. The shortest route Is twenty-two miles long. .The longest is fifty miles. Deliveries to Muskegon and Grand Haven, the two principal cities in which Milwaukee competes with Grand Rapids, are made by 5 p. m. of the day an order is received in Grand Rapids, provided the order is telephoned in before noon. Deliveries De-liveries are made to Kalamazoo the same clay an order is received, if telephoned to the wholesale bouse before 10 a. m. Delivery by the wholesaler to the terminal ter-minal station saves the motor truck the time that would be required in making a "pick up." This Is tiie big advantage found in the central terminal system. It expedites the handling of incoming freight in the same manner, the consignee or his agent calling at the terminal for it. In addition to that at Grand Rapids, central terminals for motor trucks are successfully operated in Minneapolis, St. Paul and Louisville.