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Post Haste Help Drive Toyota

Tuesday 26 March 2019, 1:22PM

By Beckie Wright

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That Post Haste is a company with a nationwide footprint is evidenced not only by their network of branches, but by the fact that one of their major clients is not even based in a main centre. Toyota New Zealand’s National Customer Centre is located in a massive facility at Kelvin Grove near Palmerston North Airport, and on 7 December last year Mayor Grant Smith opened a $20m, 11,000m2 extension to the existing 24,000m2 warehouse.

If you’re wondering why Toyota needs all this space to store its auto parts, the following facts may surprise you. One in four vehicles on the road in New Zealand is a Toyota, and the combined fleet of Toyota, Lexus and Daihatsu vehicles is almost one million. This necessitates their warehouse carrying some 70,000 different product lines, with 1.5 million items in stock, valued at around $28m.

In New Zealand, Toyota has to stock parts for vehicles sold new in this country and used vehicles, as well as for used imports, many of which have only ever been sold new in Japan (hence the unfamiliar model names on some imports).

Every day Toyota dispatches around 900 orders, each one with an average of five ‘lines’ or parts, many of which are for the used imports from Japan. Parts that are out of stock (or that have never been in stock) are airfreighted from Japan at no extra cost to the customer.

The most popular parts requests relate to collisions and crashes, followed by accessories, mechanical, and maintenance. Annual sales of parts and accessories were $220m in 2018. Staff levels have increased in parallel with parts sales, with 42 currently employed in the expanded warehouse and a total of 210 people employed onsite by the company.

Toyota’s National Customer Centre is the only business in the country where Post Haste has a facility embedded. “We regard Post Haste as a business partner rather than just a supplier,” says Dave Rhodes-Robinson, Toyota’s Parts & Logistics Operations Manager. “It’s a valued relationship that has lasted for more than 30 years,” he adds. “As they’re onsite, it’s quick and easy to work through any issue in person. Theirs is a dedicated service – in more ways than one.”

The bulk of Toyota’s freight is trucked by Post Haste to Toyota dealers in the North Island and northern South Island from here. The rest is airfreighted overnight to Christchurch (for Canterbury south) and Auckland (urgent deliveries) via Parcelair, which is part-owned by their parent company Freightways, so for more information on post tracking,  sending a parcel and courier quotes please go to http://www.posthaste.co.nz .