Pallet delivery of tiles works like this: the material leaves our warehouse on a protected pallet, the courier calls you to arrange an appointment and unloads kerbside with a tail lift. You see the cost before you order, with a public table by zone: no surprises in the cart.
Why tiles travel on a pallet and not in parcels
An average tile order weighs between 300 and 1,500 kg. No parcel can take that weight, and porcelain stoneware — rock hard once laid — hates knocks on its edges during transport.
That’s why all the material leaves our warehouse on a pallet: the boxes are stacked, strapped and wrapped in protective film, with reinforced corners. The pallet travels upright, it isn’t tipped over or thrown onto sorting belts the way parcels are.
| Single parcel | Pallet | |
|---|---|---|
| Manageable weight | Up to ~30 kg | Up to ~1,500 kg |
| Risk of breakage | High (automated sorting) | Low (strapped and filmed pallet) |
| Suited to | Samples, small accessories | Tile orders, even a single heavy box |
| How we ship | Samples only | All tile orders |
The only exception is samples: those do travel in a parcel, because a single well-packed tile arrives without problems. If you want to see how they work, we ship them for €5, refundable on your first order.
Kerbside delivery: what it means (and what it doesn’t)
This is the most common misunderstanding in the whole pallet tile shipping process. “Kerbside” means the courier brings the pallet to the point nearest your home that the lorry can reach, unloads it onto the ground with the tail lift, and there his job ends.
What is NOT included:
- Carrying to the floor level, not even to the ground floor inside the house.
- Moving into the garage, the garden or beyond the gate.
- Opening the boxes or unpacking the pallet.
It’s not the courier being lazy: this is how pallet freight transport works all over Europe. The driver is on his own, and the manual pallet truck only moves on hard, flat surfaces. So line up one or two people to carry the boxes inside: they weigh 20-30 kg each and can be moved by hand without tools.
A practical tip: before delivery, pick out the best unloading spot. You need a flat, hard surface — tarmac, concrete, paving blocks — where the pallet can sit for a few hours without getting in the way. Gravel and grass are no good for the pallet truck, so in that case the nearest usable point will be the entrance to the driveway, not the driveway itself.
The advance phone call: how you arrange the appointment
A pallet can’t be left on the doormat. That’s why delivery is always by appointment: when the material reaches the depot in your area, the courier calls you on the number given in the order and you agree a day and time slot.
Three practical tips to avoid delays:
- Put a mobile number you actually answer in the order, not the home landline.
- Answer unknown numbers on the delivery days too: the depots call from local landlines.
- If you already know a time slot won’t work, write it in the order notes.
And if the phone call goes unanswered? The courier tries again, but after a few attempts the pallet goes into storage: it stays at the depot awaiting instructions, and a prolonged stay can generate extra costs. That’s the scenario to avoid, and it’s why the right phone number is worth as much as the right address.
On the agreed day, be there, check the pallet and count the boxes before signing. If something doesn’t add up, sign subject to inspection: we explain everything in the guide on what to do if a tile arrives broken.
How much pallet tile shipping costs: the table by zone
The cost of a pallet depends on two things: how much it weighs and where it’s going. A pallet for the city of Milan doesn’t cost the same as one for an island or an Alpine valley, and that’s true for anyone shipping heavy goods.
The difference lies in when you find out. We publish a table by zone on the shipping costs page: you check it before you even put a box in the cart, and the total you see at checkout is that figure, VAT included. The zones work like this:
- Mainland Italy: the base band, the same for most provinces.
- Islands and remote locations: a dedicated band, because the journey involves extra legs.
- Abroad (Germany, France, Austria and other EU countries): a table by country, always public.
A tip for spending smarter: the shipping cost per m² drops as the order grows, because a full pallet travels almost like a half-empty one. Ordering everything together — including 10% waste for straight laying, 15% for diagonal or herringbone — pays off on transport too. The m²⇄boxes calculator on every product page tells you exactly how many boxes you need.
Restricted traffic zones, narrow streets and other special cases
The lorry with a tail lift is about 10 metres long. In some cases an extra arrangement is needed before shipping:
- Restricted traffic zones and historic centres: flag it in the order notes; it’s often solved with a delivery during the hours the gates are open, or at an agreed point just outside the zone.
- Narrow or private roads: if a 10-metre lorry can’t get through, a smaller vehicle or an alternative unloading point is arranged. Just tell us in advance.
- No space on the ground: the pallet takes up about 1 square metre; you need a flat spot to leave it, even temporarily.
The golden rule is just one: every quirk of the address written in the order notes saves a phone call, a postponement or a spell in storage. Thirty seconds that are worth days.
The price up front, not after: why we say it straight away
Many online tile shops show tempting per-m² prices and only reveal shipping at the very last step of the cart, once you’ve already spent half an hour choosing. On a pallet weighing hundreds of kilos, that line changes the quote seriously.
We’ve chosen the opposite route: a public table by zone, the total with VAT included visible before payment, no line that pops up at the last click. If transport has a cost — and it does, for everyone — the only honest thing is to tell you straight away, so you compare quotes on real numbers.
In short: order knowing how and when it arrives
Pallet delivery is nothing complicated once you know what to expect: a protected pallet from our warehouse, a phone call for the appointment, kerbside unloading with a tail lift, costs in a table before you order. For how the order, preparation and delivery fit together day by day, see the guide on delivery times after ordering.
If you’re still choosing the material, start from the full catalogue — from wood-effect ranges like Woodland to concretes like Grey Soul — and order a sample for €5, refunded on your first order: the pallet comes later, when you’re sure of your choice.