Press Releases

Coast to Coast provides newsworthy innovative fulfullment solutions.

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• (12/09/02) Text | PDF
Coast to Coast Fulfillment Delivers East Coast Advantage for Distributing Pacific Rim Products

• (03/29/04) Text
Coast to Coast Fulfillment New England Companies Outsourcing Advantage at Business Expo 2004, Providence Convention Center

(12/09/02)
Coast to Coast Fulfillment Delivers East Coast Advantage for Distributing Pacific Rim Products

West Greenwich, Rhode Island-based Coast to Coast Fulfillment, Inc. has developed a methodology which gives the company a strategic advantage over West Coast alternatives in distributing products manufactured in the Far East.

“At first glance it appears that it would be cheaper to take products from the Orient landing on West Coast and ship them from there,” says Coast to Coast president, Hermond Ghazarian. “However, we have found that most of America’s mail-order consumers are east of the Mississippi. Thus, it is faster for the consumer, and more profitable for our clients, to forward the shipping containers to the East Coast and then distribute the products to consumers from there.” For $1,200, we can have a 40-foot container shipped from Long Beach, CA to one of our Rhode Island warehouses by rail, and usually have the goods ready for picking, packing and shipping to consumers in three days from the time the goods first landed on the West Coast.”

According to Ghazarian, each of his clients’ 40-foot shipping containers usually hold several thousand individual consumer products. After transcontinental shipping of a container-load of goods into Coast to Coast’s Rhode Island warehouse, the additional inbound shipping cost per unit usually amount to be pennies per unit. This cost is more than offset by the decreases in postal or UPS charges in getting the package to the consumer. 47 percent of Coast to Coast’s consumers are within five shipping zones and 64 percent are within six shipping zones from its distribution warehouse in Rhode Island. According to Ghazarian, “If we were shipping from California, 61% of the nation’s direct-response buyers would be residing in postal zones 8 and 9. This results in both greater expense and time compared to Coast to Coast’s East Coast alternative. Shipping and handling is typically charged to the consumer at fixed fee regardless of the consumer’s shipping zone. Thus, our clients save shipping and handling costs and increase their margin between the shipping and handling fee charged to the consumer and the direct shipping cost with UPS or the U.S. Postal Service.”

“The consumer can also benefit,” according to Ghazarian, “Since, in a back-order situation, even with the added time to get a container to the East Coast, the product will usually arrive at most consumer households faster than if the product were shipped directly to the consumer from California. This is because standard mail and UPS ground, can take up to ten days to delivery to the more distant zones.” Coast to Coast Fulfillment’s Rhode Island distribution center is within 6 zones of more than half of the direct-response customers. Ghazarian reports, “Thus, starting from when and where a container-load of goods clears customs on the West Coast, if we were shipping directly to consumers from California, most consumers would be 7 to 8 zones away. Consequently, products can take 7 to 10 days to be delivered to the majority of consumers from a California fulfillment house, while we can deliver packages out of Rhode Island to most direct-response consumers in 4 to 7 days from the time a container first clears customs in California.”

Wholesale buyers also benefit, according to Ghazarian, since most wholesale distribution centers are east of the Mississippi. From its Rhode Island wholesale shipping center, most of its wholesale orders to catalog companies, to marketers, and to retail store warehouses are within a days’ drive by truck, thus saving the buyers time and money.

Ghazarian reports, “Shipping goods made in Asia from the East Coast is like winning the Triple Crown for our clients; their shipping costs are reduced, the consumer gets the product faster, and retail stores get their goods quicker with less freight expense.”

Coast to Coast is the largest United States Postal customer in Rhode Island, specializing in direct-to-consumer and wholesale fulfillment.

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(03/29/04)
Coast to Coast Fulfillment Gives New England Companies an Outsourcing Advantage at Business Expo 2004, Providence Convention Center

Coast to Coast Fulfillment, one of New England's leading fulfillment houses, will be presenting the economic and operational advantages of outsourcing fulfillment services at Business Expo 2004 at the Providence Rhode Island Convention Center on April 7 and 8, 2004.

Coast to Coast specializes in product fulfillment, which is the turnkey management of "back-room" operations, including the warehousing, picking, packing and shipping of orders, online customer service, and all related accounting services. Products shipped by Coast to Coast for its clients include a wide range of consumer goods, industrial parts, catalogs, promotional and sales materials, and collateral materials.

Coast to Coast's order processing services provide solutions that address the emergent trends of the globalized economy, in which technology is compelling companies to accelerate the development of their core competitive strengths while outsourcing other operations, to increase efficiency and remain competitive.

Business Expo 2004 in Providence, is New England's largest business to business exposition. At the expo, Coast to Coast will be demonstrating the advantages of its "transactional costing" model, with which clients can eliminate the fixed costs of maintaining a warehouse and, instead, pay for fulfillment services on a per-transaction basis. According to Client Service Manager, Randy Lundquist, "Our transactional costing model is a cost-controller's dream, since it is totally scalable to the cyclical vagaries of order volume."

According to Coast to Coast's president, Hermond Ghazarian, "As our clients expand, create new distribution channels, or launch new marketing campaigns, outsourcing of fulfillment operations is often the best way for them to quickly create a back-room operation, so that our clients can focus on what they do best."

In addition to presenting the advantages of outsourcing fulfillment, Coast to Coast also will be releasing two exclusive special white paper reports under the master topic of Fulfillment Outsourcing 2004: How & Why? These reports outline the latest trends, the pros and cons, the pitfalls, opportunities and case histories related to fulfillment outsourcing. The B2C Edition demonstrates how to ramp up to handle millions of consumer orders within weeks, while the B2B Edition demonstrates how to setup a scalable distribution operation with zero fixed operating costs, yet able to handle orders from any client, whether it's a small shop, a distributor, or a major retail chain.

Coast to Coast Fulfillment will be exhibiting at booth number 328 at Business Expo 2004, Providence, Rhode Island, April 7 and 8.

Contact:
Randy Lundquist
Coast to Coast Fulfillment, Inc.
1-800-200-0028
RLundquist@ctcf-inc.com

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