Innotrac Corp.- Order Fulfillment - Category Main Page

(678) 584-4000

6655 Sugarloaf Parkway

Duluth, GA 30097
www.innotrac.com

Sales

$75 million

Business Description
Innotrac Corporation provides order processing, order fulfillment services
and contact center services to large corporations that outsource these functions.
In order to perform contact center and order fulfillment functions in-house, a company
may be required to develop expensive, labor-intensive infrastructures, which may
divert its resources and management's focus from its principal or core business.
By assuming responsibility for these tasks, Innotrac strives to improve the
quality of the non-core operations of our clients and to reduce their overall
operating costs.  

Innotrac receives most of their clients' orders either through inbound call
center services, electronic data interchange ("EDI") or the internet. On a same
day basis, depending on product availability, the Company picks, packs, verifies
and ships the item, tracks inventory levels through an automated, integrated
perpetual inventory system, warehouses data and handles customer support
inquiries.

Innotrac's core competencies include:

- Order Fulfillment Services:

- sophisticated warehouse management technology

- automated shipping solutions

- real-time inventory tracking and order status

- purchasing and inventory management

- channel development

- zone skipping for shipment cost reduction

- product sourcing and procurement

- packaging solutions

- back-order management

- returns management

- Customer Support Services:

- inbound call center services

- technical support and order status

- returns and refunds processing

- call centers integrated into fulfillment platform

- cross-sell/up-sell services

- collaborative chat

- intuitive e-mail response

The Company is a major provider of fulfillment and customer support services to
the telecommunications industry. In spite of a significant contraction and
consolidation in this industry in the past several years, the Company continues
to provide customer support services and fulfillment of consumer telephones and
wireless pager equipment ("Telecommunications products") and Digital Subscriber
Line and Cable Modems ("Modems") for clients such as BellSouth Corporation
("BellSouth"), Qwest Communications International, Inc. ("Qwest") and Comcast
Corporation ("Comcast") and their customers.

The Company also provides a variety of these services for a significant number
of retail, catalog and direct marketing companies such as The Coca-Cola Company,
Ann Taylor Retail, Inc., Smith & Hawken, Ltd., Tactica International, Inc.,
Porsche Cars North America, Inc., Nordstrom.com LLC, Wilsons Leather Direct,
Inc., Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc., and Thane International. We take
orders for our retail, catalog and direct marketing clients via the internet, through a
customer service representative at our Pueblo and Reno call centers or through
direct electronic transmission from our clients. These orders are processed
through one of our order management systems and then transmitted to one of our
seven fulfillment centers located across the country and are shipped to the end
consumer or retail store location, as applicable, typically within 24 hours of
when the order is received. Inventory is held on a consignment basis, with minor
exceptions, and includes items such as shoes, clothing, accessories, books and
outdoor furniture.

The Company also provides these services for business-to-business ("B2B")
clients including Books are Fun, Ltd. (a subsidiary of Readers' Digest), NAPA
and The Walt Disney Company.

In July 2001, to further our strategy to diversify our industry and client
concentration, we acquired iFulfillment, Inc. ("iFulfillment"). Our iFulfillment
subsidiary specializes in fully integrated, automated, order fulfillment
services for multi-channel retailers and catalogers including such clients as
Nordstrom.com LLC, Wilsons Leather Direct, Inc. and Martha Stewart Living
Omnimedia, Inc.
 

FULFILLMENT SERVICES

Providing effective turnkey fulfillment solutions for our clients' products is
our primary business. Our capabilities in this area are described below:

FULFILLMENT. We are committed to delivering our clients' products to their
customers on a timely and accurate basis. Our personnel pick, pack, verify and
ship product orders and requests for promotional, technical and educational
literature, shoes, clothing, electronic equipment, accessories, books and
outdoor furniture for our clients. We use several custom-designed,
semi-automated packaging and labeling lines to pack and ship products as well as
highly automated, conveyorized systems utilizing RF scanning and pick-to-light
technologies. By utilizing these technologies, we are able to reduce labor costs
and provide more timely shipments to our clients' customers. We streamline and
customize the fulfillment procedures for each client based upon the client
request and the tracking, reporting and inventory controls necessary to
implement that client's marketing support program. We also offer comprehensive
product return services whereby our personnel receive, log, test, repackage and
dispose of products that are returned from end-users.

Our Atlanta operations earned ISO 9001:2000 certification in 2002 and our
Hebron, Kentucky operations earned ISO 9001:2000 certification in 2003. We are
dedicated to providing quality service to our clients at every step in the
fulfillment process. To ensure order accuracy, shipment inspection and system
driven validation are performed to prove the contents exactly match the order
prior to shipment. In addition, we have highly sensitive scales at the end of
our packaging lines that also assist in ensuring the accuracy of every order.
Our 2003 order accuracy rate exceeded 99.5%.

INVENTORY MANAGEMENT. An integral part of our fulfillment services is the
monitoring and control of a client's inventory. We provide automated inventory
management and reporting to assure real-time stock counts of a client's
products, literature and other items. Our inventory systems enable us to provide
management information to maintain consistent and timely reorder levels and
supply capabilities and also enable the client to quickly assess stock balances,
pricing information, reorder levels and inventory values. We offer this
information to the client on a real-time basis through our internet gateway or
direct system integration. Inventory management data is also utilized in our
reporting services. We utilize bar coding equipment in our inventory management
systems, which improves the efficiency of stock management and selection. We
also perform cycle counts throughout the year to check system-maintained item
balances against physical item balances. Our facilities have several layers of
security. When necessary, we dispose of clients' products utilizing established
guidelines. Disposal procedures vary depending on the product and client
business rules.

PURCHASING MANAGEMENT. For certain clients, we place orders for products we
fulfill with vendors chosen by those clients. Our purchasing management services
include assisting a client in negotiating product pricing with the vendor,
arranging returns and credits as well as forecasting product quantities required
for normal business programs or promotions.

PRODUCT CONSIGNMENT AND WAREHOUSING. For substantially all of our clients, we
warehouse products on a consignment basis and fulfill orders on behalf of our
customers for a fee. In certain cases (primarily BellSouth), we may purchase and
own inventory, but on a significantly reduced risk basis as a result of client
guarantees and contractual indemnifications.

CUSTOMER SUPPORT SERVICES. Another of our core competencies is providing
customer support services. We believe these services are critical to a
comprehensive order processing and order fulfillment solution. Our customer
support services are described below.

INBOUND CONTACT CENTER SERVICES. Our customer service representatives take orders
for certain clients and resolve questions regarding shipping, billing and order
status as well as a variety of other questions. From time to time they may sell
equipment, other products and telephone company services to customers who call
us. To properly handle the call, Innotrac's automated call distributor
identifies each inbound call by the toll-free number dialed and immediately
routes the call to the interactive voice response ("IVR") system
or an Innotrac customer service representative. If the caller is placing an
order they are immediately transmitted to a customer service representative
trained to take the order and enter it into our systems for transmittal to the
appropriate fulfillment center. If the customer has a question, complaint or
needs return information, the IVR system attempts to resolve these issues by
guiding the customer through a series of interactive questions. If IVR automatic
resolution cannot solve the problem, the call is routed to one of our customer
service representatives who are specially trained in the applicable client's
business and products and answer using the client's name. Our customer service
representatives can enter customer information into our call-tracking system,
listen to a question and quickly access a proprietary network database using a
graphical interface to answer a customer's question. A senior representative is
available to provide additional assistance for complex or unique customer
questions. Customer service representatives are also trained to handle
introductory level technical support issues. Customer requests are generally
resolved with a single call, whether answered by a trained representative or our
automated systems.

RETURNS AND REFUNDS PROCESSING. The representatives respond to customer calls
about product returns and refunds and obtain information about customer service
problems. They facilitate a customer's return of a product by providing a
bar-coded label to the customer. When the returned item is processed and entered
into our system, it automatically triggers a pre-set action for reshipment of a
product or refund to the customer.
 

Ticker

INOC

Order Fulfillment Companies in the Directory

Amazon.com Advantage & Amazon Merchants@

FedEx Supply Chain Services

GSI Commerce

Innotrac

PFSweb

UPS Supply Chain Solutions