Coastal Hire in Botswana now a Goscor dealer

In line with its aggressive expansion programme in the Southern African and Indian Ocean Islands region, Goscor Lift Truck Company (GLTC) has appointed Coastal Hire as a Goscor dealer in Botswana.

Coastal Hire, which started off as Wessels Hire in 2000 is owned by Wessel Wessels and Brenda Gerber. In 2016, with six branches throughout Botswana, they decided to join the Coastal Hire franchise operation. “We felt that owner-managed stores was the best route to offer a more personalised and professional service to our customers throughout Botswana and this concept was best facilitated under the Coastal Hire brand, which also, as a bonus,  gave us more exposure,” says Wessels.

He says that he is very optimistic about the new Coastal Hire/ Goscor partnership. “The Goscor Lift Truck range is a perfect fit for our company. We are used to dealing with large capital equipment with our customers, which include private and public mining, construction, building and forestry companies. Many of Goscor’s products are appropriate for our existing customer base and we also look forward to extending into new areas like the traditional warehouse materials handling sector,” he says.

“Lifting equipment has been a gap in our offering that we have intended closing for some and we are delighted to do this with brands that have developed an enviable reputation throughout the Southern African region. This will certainly improve our ability to provide the correct piece of equipment for the job at hand, which is our fundamental mission, Wessels says.

Initially Coastal Hire will be focusing on three of Goscor’s top brands, Crown, Doosan and Bendi.

Crown is the world’s largest manufacturer of electric powered materials handling equipment including hand pallet trucks, power pallet trucks, counter-balance forklifts, order pickers and more, and is renowned for its beautifully designed, durable, user-friendly machines.

Doosan is a world-leading manufacturer of one of the finest selections of lift trucks and offers a wide range of quality and user-proven heavy duty forklifts.   Its oil-cooled “brakes for life” system enables Goscor to offer a 60-month, unlimited hours guarantee on Doosan brakes.

Bendi articulated forklifts help the operator work faster, safer and more accurately – even in widths of just 1.6m. Many customers have reported up to 50% space saving by using the Bendis.

Coastal has a centralised workshop in Gaborone as well as four ‘satellite’ workshops in Letlhakane, Francistown, Palapye and Kasane. Each has fully qualified mechanics who make sure customers’ machines are maintained to the highest levels ensuring the least possible downtime. “Technical service is crucial to the success of our business and our infrastructure in this regard is geared for the Goscor products,” he says.

Meanwhile Coastal has sold a Crown TSP 6000 turret truck – the first-ever turret truck in Botswana – with lift capacity of 1250Kg and  lift-height of 8.5m turret to logistics company, Zebra Shipping.

“These are outstanding machines which enable efficient and fast operation in very narrow aisle (VNA) operation,” says Wessels. “They have the versatility to handle a wide range of warehousing challenges – from full pallet put-away and order picking to transporting and staging and Crown’s performance enhancing control innovations help operators work more productively.”

Widely acclaimed as the best turret trucks in the industry, the Crown trucks are able to respond to the requirements of the most demanding material handling tasks out there.

Goscor Group GM for Africa, Randhir Haripersad, says he has confidence that Coastal Hire will make the grade in terms of its Goscor business. “They are professional operators and Wessel, Brenda and the team understand completely how Goscor likes to do business. We look forward to a long and successful partnership with them,” he says.

Coastal Hire’s head office is in Gaborone with six branches country-wide

FOR MORE INFORMATION CALL COASTAL HIRE ON +267 395 3289.

Goscor Botswana

L to R: Ritesh Ramjattan – Business Manager Africa Goscor Lift Truck company), Wessel Wessels – owner Coastal Hire Botswana, Randhir Haripersad – Goscor Group GM for Africa and Brenda Gerber – owner Coastal Hire.