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Monday, May 28, 2007

Furniture Distribution Going Global

For many years, many Americans purchased their furniture from local stores around the country that purchased at furniture and for manufacturers located in the United States. Home furniture like clothing has a lot to do with style and taste and sometimes quality. When styles lean towards American, US manufacturing benefits.

Manufacturing of home furniture has long been a staple of the textile industry in the southeast United States, but it's starting to experience more pressure from imports. Wal-Mart is not exactly the culprit in this particular distribution scenario has Wal-Mart doesn't deal a great deal in furniture. However more and more people in the United States are developing the eclectic tastes and days are starting to look for styles that they perceive to have come from abroad.

This can deliver a double whammy for US manufacturers hoping to compete in the global market as they have to find ways to keep costs in check to compete at a cost level and at the same time they must find ways to re-energize their product lines with designs and concepts that reach out to their customer base.

Universal MFG Sells Parts Distribution Business to AER Sales

Universal Manufacturing Company has sold its Auto parts distribution business to AER sales.  The company distributed Ford and Motorcraft parts to Ford Dealerships and has sold the business to AER Sales which has a similar business in other areas of the country.  Universal MFG operated warehouses in Peoria, IL, Omaha, NE and Des Moines IA prior to the sale employing about 10 people.

Radar Detectors to Promote Slower Driving

Companies that have employees on staff that utilize company cars or vehicles or deliver products often times employ the use of governors on their vehicles to ensure that their employees do not speed. These days they also often employed GPS devices and other tracking tools to determine if there people are utilizing optimum routes. Sometimes they even use these tools to determine if their employees are speeding.

It goes slightly against conventional wisdom, however radar detectors can also be used for a purpose to help remind employees not to speed. A radar detector can provide a warning to a driver to remind them to pay attention to their speed whether they are speeding or not. Hearing the beeping of a radar detector or the flash of light can remind people to look at the speedometer and check their speed which is a good reminder in general. It's a low-tech way to help your employees remember to be careful when a driving company vehicles.

Sunday, May 27, 2007

Moving from Distribution to Farming? Agri-tainment offers life experiences that consumers will pay to see

Oregon Lavender Farm has done something rather unique, they are a distributor that is moved in the farming.  They purchase what used to be a poultry plant and a turn it into a Lavender Farm where they grow flowers so they can extract Lavender oil.

They found themselves uniquely positioned as a distributor of oils and other materials used by many other businesses and took on a poultry plant with a goal of converting it into a farm.  This suited the local county nicely as the county was hoping to keep the area farming and agriculturally grounded.

There was some early concern over the agricultural only use restrictions for the area, but they were eventually able to work these out with the local government.

Many businesses are taking new looks at recall chair and farming in particular.  Oregon Lavender Farm is also considering moving into other farming activities on their site from growing corn to distill alcohol as well as growing mushrooms.  They've even contemplated moving into a business known as agri-tourism or in some areas agri-trainment.

It's the mixing of tourism or entertainment with agriculture.  It helps farms and/or businesses that owned farms diversify their revenue in multiple ways.  Farms are on the country are moving more and more into these alternate agricultural-based businesses whether it's Christmas tree farms that sponsor Christmas related events on their farms, or pumpkin farmers sponsoring festivals and other events even strawberry farms that invite the public and to pick their own strawberries and make a day out of harvesting strawberries.

It helps the consumers get closer to the product while enjoying the outdoors and it helps the farmers find alternate ways to diversify their revenue streams.  At the end of the day people and consumers are willing to pay for an experience.  They pay for experiences when they watch TV shows or read books even when they surf the Internet and read the newspaper.  Agri-tourism or agri-tourism is another way for people to gain an experience and are willing to pay for that experience more often than not.

Local Travel Sites for Business Trips

Sponsored Article

The locals always know better than visitors where the good deals are.  Its the thing that identifies a tourist from a local in many ways.  The age of the internet however has the ability to level the playing field a bit.

Travelers can opt for national or international travel sites to get the generic tourist prices, or they can dig a little deeper and find better deals through localized and targeted sites that focus entirely on the area in question.

Orlando.com for example focuses on, you guessed it!, travelling to Orlando Florida.  If you are looking for great deals on flights to or from, car rentals, or orlando vacation rentals their latest release has been set up to give you more information about how you can save even more money than going with a national site.

The competition here is basically between the larger sites getting price breaks based on economies of scale versus localized sites that are in the know about local deals.  The best part about that is that the localized sites can synthesize the deals from larger services along with the know how from local deals, giving travelers the best of both worlds on one website.

Rolling Up the Numbers with Consolidation Software

Companies mitigate risk by diversifying their structures and their lines of business.  This diversification however can make rolling up the numbers time-consuming, cumbersome and prone to human mistakes and errors.  Businesses around the world are working to wean themselves off of their addiction to Microsoft Excel and spreadsheet programs.  For almost 3 decades now many companies have been relying on spreadsheet software to take results from multiple lines of business and consolidate those results in to one big picture answer of what's going on with the financials.

There are many different approaches to providing better solutions that automate this process speed things up and reduce the amount of human error or manual work required by employees of companies.  As an example, Prophix provides consolidation software that enables companies to tie their systems into a solution that can help consolidate the books into one set of financials.  Doing this in a timely and accurate manner is extremely important not only to provide the financial numbers to the investing public but to provide business leaders with the accurate knowledge of what's going on in the business so that they can make better decisions and guide their company towards profitability and success.

AmeriGas Grows Distribution by Shell Gass (LPG) Purchase

AmeriGas grew its distribution capability this month when it purchased Shell Gas (LPG) USA, which owned and operated a retail propane distribution business with 12 locations in Michigan.  This business served close to 20,000 customers and will slightly increase AmeriGas' existing customer base of 1.3 million customers in 600 distribution locations covering 46 states.

Friday, May 18, 2007

Distributing Pens at Trade Shows

You can't host a booth at a trade show empty handed.  You have to offer your visitors something.  If you are looking for a quick solution or even looking to stock up on some options for the plethora of trade shows that take place all year long, not to mention training seminars and other events, then consider Pens R Us.

They have a very wide selection of all types of pens from fancy engraved pens to discount pens. You can stock up with lots of cases even and have a case on stand by for the next trade show, training seminar or other opportunity that comes along.

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Plustek Deal with D&H Distributing

Plustek announced a distribution agreement with D&H Distributing out of Pennsylvania.  Plustek is a leading manufacturer of imaging devices including imaging devices for office and consumer uses.  D&H Distributing it is a privately held distributor operating out of Pennsylvania.  They've been in business for 89 years and maintain part of their business advantage by remaining private. 

Accounting for distribution companies often times requires a great level of prudence that sometimes pushes for deals that benefit the numbers in the short term but hurt the numbers in the long-term when a public company is involved.  DH is able to avoid this pitfall in part as it is a private company and does not have to chase after the quarterly driven numbers that many public companies are burdened by.  This long-term advantage alternately does help them deliver strong short-term results.  They operate in a very unassuming building, but they do deliver results.

Link to Plustek Enters into Distribution Agreement with D&H Distributing