Online auction house Graysonline has equipped its main New South Wales warehouse with 35 pieces of Toyota material handling equipment.

The company’s 30,000 square-metre warehouse at Homebush in western Sydney handles 85 per cent of the company’s warehoused products, with up to 35,000 individual stock movements per week.

Toyota Material Handling’s wide product range meant it could meet all GraysOnline’s equipment needs, thereby consolidating forklift contracts from multiple sites.

The 35 units, all battery-electric, include Toyota 1.8-tonne payload 8FBN18 counter-balance forklifts, Toyota three-tonne payload 7FB30 forklifts, BT RRE reach forklifts, BT low-level order pickers and BT Levio pallet trucks.

GraysOnline Homebush warehouse manager Rick Jacobs said special considerations for the material handling equipment included compatibility with Australia Post equipment and the versatility of the BT high-reach forklifts.

“It is vital that our warehouse equipment can operate with Australia Post’s uniform loading devices,” he said.

“The high-reach forklifts had to be specified with low multi-stage masts, so they could work under our mezzanine racking and also reach the top pick heights in the seven-metre high racking.”

Mr Jacobs said GraysOnline based the equipment purchase decision on three key factors: safety capability, service maintenance, and the product range meeting all the warehouse’s needs.

“The number of forklifts on site means TMHA’s Sydney service technicians are here once a month for regular maintenance,” he said.

TMHA’s Sydney major accounts manager Michael Marks said GraysOnline had been a Toyota forklift customer for the last seven years, using a diverse range of equipment from hand pallet trucks to four-wheel counter-balance forklifts.

The Grays auction house has a tradition reaching back more than 100 years.

It moved into online auctions in 2000 and now sells more than 70 product categories, from IT goods and wine to automotive and mining equipment.

Toyota Material Handling Australia is the factory-owned national distributor for the full range of Toyota, BT Lift Truck and Raymond product, as well as Toyota’s Huski skid-steer loader range.