Tier-Rack has a broad customer base for its stack racks, tire racks and shipping racks. This provides the company with an interesting overview of how the economy is affecting companies from the Fortune 500 to middle market to family owned small businesses.
Our customers buy stack racks when their business is growing or planning to grow. Stacking racks are needed when a business runs out of storage space and needs to utilize the “air space” above their floor space to store product.
A large company may well continue to add new warehouse space during a downturn in the economy, as they continue on with their long range growth plans. Such is not the case with most small businesses, which do not have the ability to spend money on growth when sales are slow. This causes them to reduce purchases of portable stack racks when the economy slows and then buy stack racks when the economy improves.
The current recovery is not unfolding in a typical manner. Yes, the large companies have continued to buy portable racks throughout the ups and downs of recent years. The report from those with smaller businesses is more along the line of “Business is not great, but it is better than last year”. So the stock market continues to advance and many of the big businesses rack up big profits. Meanwhile, the situation on Main Street shows a more gradual improvement for smaller firms.
Based on past history, until smaller companies are more active adding to their warehouse space and ordering stacking racks, the economy will continue to seem slow to many people. Unfortunately, the “stack rack indicator” points to continued slow progress out of the Great Recession.
If you want to learn more about stack racks click www.tier-rack.com, email sales@tier-rack.com, or call 1-800-325-7869 for more information.