A Chat with Arnie Zaslow, executive vice president, ATD American Co.

CS: What is your primary merchandise?
AZ: Institutional furniture and equipment for the business, education, and correctional markets. I think our biggest single market is the federal, state and local government market.

CS: What are your main sales channels, and what percentage of sales does each represent?
AZ: One of the things that makes us somewhat noteworthy is what I like to call “mix.” We have a mix of markets, which I’ve described already. We also have a mix of products. We sell textiles, furniture, safety and protective equipment, certain medical equipment. And we have a mix of selling techniques. We sell through our catalog of course, through which we do about 60 percent of our volume. Through the Web, which is comparatively new, about 13 percent. Our outside sales people bring in about 11 percent. The telemarketing team does 10 percent, and we do 6 percent through e-mail solicitation.