Manage Multichannel Sales With The Systems You Already Have

June 2012 Integrated Solutions For Retailers

By Bob Johns, associate editor

Regional landscape supplier, Ohio Mulch, is growing sales by coordinating supply and delivery through all channels.

Ohio Mulch is a landscape supply wholesaler and retailer with 21 locations across Ohio and Kentucky and 5 websites that combine to generate $40M in sales. With many selfbranded products available and such a large distribution area across channels, managing the brand throughout the supply chain can be a challenge. They manufacture mulch in facilities in South Georgia, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Columbus and distribute through the retail locations and websites.

The 125-person operation was having difficulty managing orders from the 24 inventory locations that handle their private label brand. “When we launched the ability to place orders on our website, we were inundated with orders that needed to be printed and faxed to the location closest to the customer. We had one employee that did nothing but print and fax orders all day long,” said Paul Donnelly, operations manager. Stores then had to enter the orders in the POS system to capture the information electronically. There were many times that the orders were keyed incorrectly resulting in incorrect shipments and unhappy customers. “We had no way to track delivery of orders, and everything was on paper. It made it very difficult when customers had questions,” Donnelly said. The company had 8 people dedicated just to reconciling transactions between stores and the accounting system. The lost employee productivity was killing them.