Fulfillment services have been a staple at Excalibur ever since we opened our doors in 1972. Over the company’s four-decade history, Excalibur has provided fulfillment and kitting services to a variety of clients from Lexington Furniture to Hanes Hosiery for their L’eggs panty hose product line.
Today, we are nearing completion of a 27,000-unit project that began a little more than three weeks ago. The project’s goal is to reach school officials across the country regarding a nationwide fundraising campaign.
The project involved a significant amount of work by our Data Department on the front end, cleaning and organizing the client’s database so as to ensure that we had only the most updated and deliverable contact information and mailing addresses possible for the project.
From there, we began the production phase of the project, assembling a cardboard box similar to a pizza box to carry a premium, magnet and a variety of printed materials. Over the course of the project, our production team averaged 2,500 units assembled per day!
Once the box was constructed and the materials inside, the boxes were sealed, addressed and delivered to the post office on 65 skids. Each skid was organized by zip code, so all the boxes going to St. Louis were grouped together and on a separate skid from those going to Philadelphia.
Although the client was pretty far into their project planning process when they contacted us, our postal experts here at Excalibur determined that the client could save a significant amount of money on postage if they redesigned the box, which had yet to be created, and reduced the contents inside to bring the overall weight of the package to under one pound. Excalibur consulted with the client on several package redesigns that ultimately led to a box design that weighed less than one pound. Additionally, our production team worked with the local USPS officials to develop presentation alternatives that would ensure that the packages moved quickly through the postal system.
Due to our close collaboration with the client, Excalibur saved approximately $100,000 in postage costs alone, which gave the client confidence in their choice of Excalibur as a strategic executional partner and in moving forward with a national project of this size and cost.
Do you have a fulfillment or kitting project on the horizon and need some advice on the most cost-effective and efficient way to execute it? Our team is waiting to hear from you!
