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

We attended VendorNet’s conference at the beginning of this month to present a speech and a roundtable on Vendor Compliance Policies. The speech covered:
• Role of vendor compliance in reducing costs and speeding receipts through the DC
• Trends in vendor compliance
• Contents of vendor compliance manuals
• […]

Cost Reduction and Productivity Improvement Assessment
70+ Ways to Reduce Costs, Increase Productivity and Improve Customer Service
By Curt Barry
Over the past 23 years F. Curtis Barry & Company’s work with multichannel companies in operations and fulfillment consulting has allowed us to compile these 70+ ways that can cut costs and increase productivity, which will ultimately lead […]

At our recent Executive Forum we talked about how rising postage costs, increasing paper costs and the fall off in prospecting response rates have radically changed the traditional catalog business model. While there are large, efficient catalogs that spend in the high 20-percents on the total cost to create and mail catalogs, many businesses are […]

The Wall Street Journal (April 21, 2008, B1) detailed a strategy by Macy’s CEO Terry Lundgren to localize store assortments to cater to what shoppers are more interested in buying. This localization—called “My Macy’s”—will for now will be only 15% of the total SKUs, which range from 1.5 million to 4 million, depending on store […]

The F. Curtis Barry & Company and Catalog Success’ co-branded two-day interactive systems workshop, “Evaluating, Selecting and Implementing Direct Commerce Systems” has added a new twist to the registration for this workshop.
The first 20 registrants for the systems workshop will receive a discount of $100 off the registration fee of $795. The spots are filling […]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Upcoming solution will bring together multiple data sources to analyze business performance, aid merchandise analysis, analyze productivity in call centers and fulfillment centers
Redwood City, CA, and Richmond, VA; April 2, 2008 –
For 20 years, Taurus Software has been “making data liquid” for over 700 companies world-wide, with over 80 clients being in the […]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Richmond, VA, & Philadelphia, PA, April 7, 2008 — F. Curtis Barry & Company, a leading consultancy to multichannel businesses, in partnership with Catalog Success, the leading publication serving the catalog/multichannel business, today jointly announced a co-branded two-day interactive workshop, “Evaluating, Selecting and Implementing Direct Commerce Systems.”
“The software marketplace for today’s multichannel direct […]

This is a question that needs to be asked because of some recent trends. Consider:
1. Production chases low cost labor. Where Japan and Taiwan were the centers before China, production is starting to move from China to other Asian countries such as Indonesia, Vietnam and Cambodia—as well as Mexico, Central and South […]

Press Release sent to us from IFSO
San Francisco, CA, March 4, 2008: Forerunner Systems Inc. announced the general release of IFSO 4.0. IF/SO® - The Inventory Forecaster, provides inventory forecasting and stock optimization solutions to the direct commerce industry, helping catalog and e-commerce companies improve customer fulfillment, reduce backorders and optimize the liquidation […]

In this difficult and increasingly competitive retail environment, catalog merchants are more challenged than ever to increase sales and profit. From what I am seeing, the good news is that merchandising executives are increasingly giving emphasis to both sales and profitability metrics when measuring catalog performance—a healthy direction that will be sure to increase profits […]