# of Locations: 16
Geography: Arizona and Colorado
Market Sector: Retail
On-Line Sales: Yes

Multiple Location Retail Chain Faces Growing Pains
Our client’s business was booming. What started as a single location retail store blossomed into a 16 location chain in Arizona and Colorado. In addition to location-based sales, they were enjoying an upswing in web-based sales. The owners had reached the point where they could no longer manage the entirety of the business. To get to the next level of their business, they needed to make drastic changes in their management and logistics model:

• Where will my inventory be stored?
• Will it be at each location or at a centralized location?
• If it is centralized, how will I keep track of it all?
• If it is centralized, how do I deliver it to each location?
• Who will pick, pack and ship my internet orders?
• How much will this cost?
• What if I grow even larger and my warehouse isn’t big enough?
• What if business is seasonal and for part of the year I am stuck paying for warehouse space I don’t need?

The owners found themselves spending more and more TIME and MONEY managing operational issues that were outside the core of their business. They needed to find a more efficient method for their warehousing, resupply and shipping.

The Outsource Solution – Build your business and let experts manage the tedium We told them they had two options. You could lease or buy your own warehouse or partition your retail locations to include mass storage, hire additional staff to receive, manage and track your inventory and pay all related costs (racking systems, utilities, payroll and insurance) or they can outsource. By choosing to outsource their warehousing and shipping needs to PMA, they gained several advantages:

• Dedicated space in our warehouse, they only pay for the space they are using
• Our warehouse staff becomes their warehouse staff
• We receive their re-supply shipments
• We re-distribute their stock to their locations as needed
• We pick, pack and ship their web-based orders
• Our inventory tracking and management system integrates with their system –they have up to the minute status of their inventory levels
• We provide custom reporting

Benefits to Outsourcing
Outsourcing their warehousing and shipping operations solved many problems and provided several advantages to our client:

• Their time is now spent on sales and marketing, growing the business instead of maintaining it
• Working capital has been increased
• Fixed costs are now variable costs

Conclusion
By outsourcing, the retail chain can focus on the reason they are in business – to sell their products – instead of running a warehouse (and paying all of the associated costs). They have increased their working capital as well as their human capital and can now focus of sales and marketing. During peak season, they have the storage and manpower they need and during the off-peak season, they are not stuck with empty shelves and employees with nothing to do. When you need a specific service provided that is not part of your core business, it is usually more efficient to hire an experienced company to provide it for you.

Company Profile
PMA Fulfillment has been servicing the needs of retailers, manufacturers and distributors since 1988. Under new leadership starting in 2007, PMA’s focus shifted to increasing efficiency through the use of technology. Companies from all over the US have turned to PMA for their storage and shipping needs. As every company is unique in what they require, PMA is flexible enough to design a program to meet every need.

• Program management
• Pick, pack and ship for your direct to consumer orders
• Inventory management
• Data integration – our system will integrate with your system for up to the minute status of your inventory
• Scalability
• Bundled pricing
• Post-sale D2C or web-based customer service for returns
• Green shipping

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