Fulfillment News

American Shipping Centers has announced plans of opening retail shipping locations starting in 2007. "These are exciting times for our company," says company President, Jeffrey D. Lever, "but, everyone here at ASC thinks the best is yet to come!" Spurred by the company's growth in a multitude of service sectors to vendors, producers, and retailers, the outlook of the company does look promising. "We plan on adding over 120,000 square feet to our storage facilities within the next 3 years, with a 20,000 square foot facility coming online as soon as possible. Couple that with our plans of opening retail shipping locations this coming year (also in 2007), and you've got a great combination of services, efficiencies, synergies, and cost advantages no other company is currently offering its clients."

"The American Shipping Centers retail locations will be competing with companies such as the USPS branch offices and the UPS store. The services we plan to offer at each branch location will be very similar, but we plan on offering substantial discounts for shipping costs and shipping materials to bring in additional customers. Volume will be the key to the success of our retail branch, and once people begin comparing our prices, I don't think that will be much of a problem. " Said Mr. Lever, "We plan on leveraging our relationship with our shipping partners and shipping supply companies to offer extremely competitive rates on packaging and shipping costs. You look at what a company like Walmart has done over the past few decades, and you can tell Sam Walton (founder of Walmart) was right on the money! He simply took the best price and coupled it with the best value and good service and built a great company around it. We plan to follow Walton's business model with our retail sector of American Shipping Centers."

American Shipping Centers has announced plans to expand it fulfillment and pick and pack operations. Currently the company is looking to build a 20,000 square foot fully climate controlled storage facility and a 4,000 square foot office. Says company President, Jeffrey D. Lever, "These are exciting times for our company. However, we believe the best is yet to come!" Speaking of ASC's current business model, their ambitious plans include adding over 100,000 additional sq feet within 3 years to the 20,000 they are currently looking to build. "We've added a vast array of services that can assist the online world of order entry, product fulfillment, and inventory management. Companies like Amazon.com, Buy.com, and even eBayers (people who sell large quantities of stock through eBay.com) are always looking to outsource product management, inventory management, and product customer service - and we've seen a growing demand for each of our service offerings", states the President of ASC. "We have essentially taken on a streamlined approach to product management. Now, rather than producers handling such business related tasks as marketing, warhousing, wholesalers, managing retailers, product/customer support, merchant account pocessing, and return processing, etc - companies can get 90% of these services done under a single roof with ASC. It is a tremendous savings on the overhead expenses associated with our customers' companies, and removes, in some cases, huge time management burdens that companies had trouble dealing with in the past." When asked about completing the supply chain and including unit production in the long equation of services currently offered by ASC, Mr. Lever repied, "I couldn't rule anything out at this point, but right now we are focusing on our core competencies of simply managing the supply chains of our customers. When you are already managing large quantities of SKU's, we don't think it is the correct time to diversive in that direction or any time soon. However, I can't rule it out of the equation for future diversification. "
When Mr. Lever was asked what else was planned to implement in the expansion of American Shipping Center's fulfillment & pick and pack operations he replied, "We have a lot of new techniques we are eager to implement that are somewhat cutting-edge to the fulfillment industry. I think it will give new meaning to the phrase 'Just In Time' inventory management." Also, Mr Lever stated that product turn around times should be among the fastest in the industry with most items going out within a matter of hours.