F. Curtis Barry & Company’s Multichannel Operations & Fulfillment Blog

F. Curtis Barry & Company ShareGroups always produce interesting insights, and the Warehouse Benchmarking ShareGroup meeting, hosted in Columbus, OH, by Victoria’s Secret Direct (March 12–13), was no exception to that rule. ShareGroup members generate their own “hot topics” for discussion during meetings. Topping this year’s list of the dozen warehousing and distribution topics of […]

It’s going to be a busy end of the month: This year’s National Conference on Operations & Fulfillment (NCOF) will take place in Schaumburg, IL, at the Renaissance Hotel and Convention Center, from Monday, April 30 to Wednesday, May 2, with an additional day of pre-conference special sessions scheduled for Sunday, April 29. F. Curtis […]

In the past week, national news media have been reporting more details of the TJX security breach we blogged about several weeks ago. Now TJX says that the breach involved information stolen from—take a deep breath—47.5 million credit and debit cards. That would make this one of the largest payment card security breaches ever. And […]

Event includes a tour of LifeWay Christian Stores’ warehouse and a benchmarking metrics discussion
Richmond, VA, April 2, 2007—Multichannel operations and fulfillment consulting firm F. Curtis Barry & Company has announced that its next Benchmarking ShareGroup, focusing on retail replenishment, will take place April 23–24, 2007, in Nashville, TN. To learn more please visit: http://www.fcbco.com/benchmarking/retail-replenishment-sharegroup.asp
The 2007 […]

Per Mokrynskidirect
The survey results for February report strengthening for General Merchandise mailers. Apparel mailers show an increase in sales vs. last year as compared to last month, but a slight decrease vs. plan.
76% of all mailers surveyed reported February sales equal to or better than last year, and 71% reported sales equal to or better […]

On Monday, March 19, the USPS board of governors approved the rates that were recommended late last month by the Postal Regulatory Commission, paving the way for most of those new rates to go into effect May 14. The board of governors allowed three of those rates under protest, and resubmitted them for consideration again […]

A POSTAL RATE CASE UPDATE FROM
DMA PRESIDENT & CEO JOHN A. GRECO, JR.
March 21, 2007
4:30 p.m. (EDT)
Dear DMA Member:
While we had some positive news from the Postal Governors on Monday, we still have quite a way to go before the postal rate case is completed and the final rates take effect. I would like to […]

BusinessWeek’s recent rankings of top customer service retailers don’t exactly come as a big surprise: Legendarily customer-centered retailer Nordstrom occupies the No. 4 spot and sports outfitter Cabela’s holds down No. 15. We blogged about this earlier:
When you have 315,000 SKUs in the DC, as Cabela’s does, you can’t hope to have all that in […]

The current USPS rate change crisis for the direct-to-customer industry, reminds us that the industry is in a sea change. Years ago we could rationalize postal increases far better than we can today. By rationalize I mean figure how to offset costs elsewhere and get the increases back. Things have changed.
Response rates have been declining […]

It’s ironic: No sooner did the postal reform bill get signed into law than the Postal Regulatory Commission’s recommendation for unexpectedly sharp USPS rate increases sent shock waves through the direct-to-customer industry. Some sources are talking about 20%–40% hikes in rates for flat pieces, the category most directly affecting the catalog industry. (The USPS recommendation […]