Focus on: Business Strategies Twenty years of steady growth and smart acquisitions have propelled Doctors Foster & Smith to the top spot among pet-supply catalogers.

By Reported Donna Loyle

No doubt, one key to maintaining flexibility is the cataloger’s unusually high in-stock inventory rates. On average, DFS stocks 95 percent of its product line at any one time (some larger items are drop shipped). Current warehouse operations are spartan, says Voellinger. “We do simple pick-pack operations right now, not very high-tech — yet.” By August, DFS is scheduled to have installed a state-of-the-art materials handling system. The company runs three shifts in the warehouse. Returns run to less than 4 percent, and backorders average only about 1 percent. The huge inventory also enables the cataloger to ship most goods within 12 hours of an order.