Order Fulfillment

From the moment you pull into the 40-acre Golfsmith campus in Austin, Texas, you know you’re in a golfers’ mecca. But as it turns out, the company’s on-site driving range and golf academy are just the beginning. Inside the 92,000 square-foot corporate headquarters, there’s a putting green for employees, and a large retail store complete with indoor waterfall and Clubhouse Café. The clubmaking workshop not only crafts custom-made clubs, it also holds weeklong classes for those who want to learn the art. A research and development team is developing clubs and testing vendor-sourced products. Enlarged pictures capturing golf imagery hang over the

Benchmarking often is described as a set of performance standards for a specific task. And best practices entail tried and true procedures that can help improve your catalog business. Although many industry benchmarks and best practices are viewed as standards, in reality most need to be adjusted to meet the requirements, limitations and needs of a particular catalog business. There’s no one model or standard of performance that works for all. For example, the return rate for an apparel mailer may be 25 percent (i.e., the standard), while a food cataloger might see a return rate of 3 percent (the standard for

Problem: Massage Warehouse was receiving delivery fines from shipping companies and returned packages due to incorrect customer address data. Solution: The company implemented QAS’ software to validate addresses using U.S. Postal Service (USPS) data. Results: Delivery surcharges dropped by 63 percent, staff productivity significantly increased, and customer satisfaction grew due to faster delivery times. When both delivery surcharges imposed by shipping companies and the number of returned packages began to rise due to incorrect address formats, Massage Warehouse realized it needed to adjust its customer address data management. For example, the difference between “Strt.” and “St.” as an abbreviation for “Street” was costing the

Absolute productivity has declined in many companies in recent years. Indeed, in conducting our benchmarking surveys (which we’ve done since 1996), we’ve discovered that many metrics, such as orders processed per full-time warehouse worker, have remained flat, while dollars of sales processed per warehouse square foot have declined. In turn, labor rates have increased from an average of $5.50 to $10.50 per direct labor hour.* To help you boost productivity at your catalog, I’ll focus on the warehouse audit process and the application of a few key warehouse success factors. An Operations Audit When trying to reduce costs and boost customer satisfaction

Inside you’ll find: cost-cutting strategies for your fulfillment operations; how to protect your inventory from internal theft; how to assess your catalog systems options; and how to determine your optimal IT spend. Get Lean Successful cost-cutting strategies for your catalog fulfillment operations. By William J. Spaide Lackluster operating performance in your catalog’s fulfillment operations can result from a combination of factors: poor productivity, inefficient processes, and unanticipated marketing and merchandise results. Failure to identify early warning signs of trouble and, more importantly, not addressing these problems decisively and effectively, are common characteristics of the operational “also-rans.” It all comes down to a

Although a catalog’s reputation often is based on its look and merchandise assortment, it can’t perform well without essential, behind-the-scenes assistance from the operations and fulfillment departments. Finding a product packaging solution that’s dependable and cost-effective — as well as one that fits your merchandise — is an ongoing challenge. The following products are headliners with positive reviews from several catalogers. As you embark on a search for new packaging solutions, keep these in mind. Product Inflation The Fill-Air Inflatable Packaging System, manufactured by Saddle Brook, NJ-based Sealed Air Corp., produces air-filled cushions for void-fill applications. In addition to protecting fragile merchandise, it also

Multichannel industry leaders such as Cabela’s, Talbots, Eddie Bauer, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Lands’ End and L.L. Bean have established themselves as the standard-setters for returns processing, allowing customers the flexibility of returning goods with a no-quibble guarantee. But there’s a downside to a liberal returns policy: Companies have seen return rates increase every year for the past 10 years. For example, $5 of every $100 worth of goods purchased on the Web are returned, compared to $6 for traditional retailers, according to The Boston Consulting Group and Shop.org. And for many merchandise categories, returns rates are much higher. Moreover, the study found

Under the Canopy’s corporate mission is to offer stylish consumers a way to help eliminate pesticides from their homes, their bodies and the planet. Its corporate history, however, demonstrates that even merchants with timely and unique ideas such as this can get temporarily blindsided by business variables beyond their control. This Boca Raton, FL-based catalog sells high-quality, fashion-forward apparel, bed and bath ware, gifts, footwear and accessories made of organic fiber grown without the use of toxic chemicals. But the company almost didn’t make it out of the start-up phase. A fulfillment fiasco threatened to sideline the business early in its development.

If you set your catalog’s shipping and handling (S&H) charges based on competitors’ rates, industry standards or consumer acceptance, you may need to update your strategy, say officials of The Direct Marketing Association (DMA). This is especially true for your online orders. Here’s why: Today’s consumers are more knowledgeable about S&H charges, and some even have won class-action lawsuits against companies that they think overcharge. To combat this consumer backlash against high S&H rates, The DMA advises the following when devising fees: • Make them reasonable. “You must be able to clarify and justify to consumers that your S&H rates have

Problem: It took Mac’s Antique Auto Parts several weeks to fulfill catalog requests. Solution: Implemented QuikPak’s catalog-fulfillment service. Result: Prospects now get catalogs within seven days of their requests. Multi-title niche cataloger Mac’s Antique Auto Parts, a supplier of replacement parts for vintage and classic Ford vehicles, couldn’t seem to deliver catalogs to requesters in less than four weeks. That was before January 2001 when it implemented a new catalog-fulfillment service. Back then, Mac’s mailed its 12 catalog titles using bulk rates through a service located near its Lockport, NY, headquarters. Because each of the catalog titles has a different weight, it took