Fall 2014 Hardlines Strategies

COMPANY NEWS

Use Your Website to Help Customers Find What They Need If you are looking for ways to enhance your website to more efficiently serve your customers, Blish-Mize can help. By adding a simple link to your site, you can lead customers to a catalog that shows all Blish-Mize products. The catalog page still has your store name on it and is part of your page. And this service is completely free! If you don’t have a website but are interested in one, consider trying a website service offered by Distribution America (DA). For a small fee, DA can help you build a website and show you how to maintain it. To learn more about either of these services, contact Cindy Kane at 913-367- 1250, ext. 167, or ckane@blishmize.com. Or, if you’re at the Fall Buying Market, stop by the sales support booth to get signed up or get any questions answered. Wireless Ordering Are your ordering capabilities at full speed? All of Blish-Mize’s new ordering devices are equipped with a full wireless option. Make sure you’re hooked in! With the new system, both the prices and availability of all new items are updated in real time, rather than having available information only from your latest update. The Quantity Available amounts are also current. As a result, your order totals will be more accurate. All new items will also be available for earlier ordering, and you can send your order directly from the scanning device, rather than having to cradle it and connect to a computer. If you don’t have the wireless ordering system, contact your Blish-Mize sales representative today. You can also learn more and order these systems at the Blish-Mize Fall Buying Market.

the first time, and having an auditor spot check ensures we’re doing just that.”

Partnering With Variety Distributors

Blish-Mize vendor Variety Distributors, the largest general merchandise distributor in the United States serving independent retailers, will be partnering their market with Blish-Mize this fall. “Variety Distributors has been a vendor of ours for quite some time,” says Blish- Mize Vice President of Purchasing Wayne Lueckenhoff. “Since 2000, our customers have been able to buy from them, and theirs from us, on a drop-ship basis.” Variety’s presence at the Market means you can find party goods, seasonal products, cleaning supplies and more. Their show will be in the 25,000-square-foot ballroom area. “Although we’ve worked with Variety for some time, it’s our first time doing a show together, and we’re excited about the opportunity,” says Lueckenhoff. “They’ll have customers who can see the hardlines products we have to offer, and you can see all the products Variety has available. “It’s a good way to expose their customers more thoroughly to our products, and vice versa,” he says. “It’s a win-win.” Celebrating 40 Years of Service On behalf of Blish-Mize, we recognize and congratulate truck driver Rex Hines for his exemplary service behind the wheel for more than 40 years. Rex has logged over 3,000,000 miles servicing his Blish-Mize customers with on-time deliveries, courteous service and an

now guided, quickly and easily, by listening to commands and talking to the system. This is done through the use of a headset and microphone. From there, the system guides the order picker to the correct bin location, providing the aisle number, item number and the quantity needing to be picked. Then the system prompts the order picker to scan the item’s UPC code for a 100-percent accurate pick. “It’s a low-cost, highly efficiency voice- picking system that will improve our already- high accuracy,” says Blish-Mize Executive Vice President of Operations Greg Lutz. The new system was fully implemented in the Broken Case Pick areas of the distribution center at the end of July and should be implemented in the Full Case Pick area later this fall. Quality Control A full-time Quality-Control Auditor position was established in the spring, with the goal to ensure the highest accuracy and efficiency among the production/order- picking employees at the distribution center. “The Quality Control Auditor’s main responsibility is to randomly select 3 to 5 percent of each employee’s work, or orders picked, and do checks of that portion,” says Lutz. “We’ve been monitoring the accuracy of each employee and the group, and we’re seeing good results from the auditing process.” Employees are rewarded for high accuracy levels. “Accuracy is so important,” says Lutz. “We want to get the orders right

New Voice Command Picking System Employees who pick orders at the

distribution center were recently trained on a new voice picking system, making picking orders faster, easier and more accurate. This new system, developed by WaveLink, increases accuracy and efficiency for employ- ees as they process orders. Team members are

Rex Hines

32 Fall 2014 • Hardlines Strategies