Intercon establishes China warehousing

Beijing, China— Case goods importer Intercon has established warehousing here as part of an effort to achieve quicker delivery times and a greater ability to mix product in containers.

The 50,000-square-foot warehouse belongs to a source factory just outside Beijing that produces bedroom and dining room furniture for Intercon. The factory, which company officials declined to name, makes about 20 Intercon collections, as much as 75% of which could be shipped from the warehouse.

Today, about half of the goods the company receives from the factory are shipped from warehouses Intercon owns in Utah, Washington and New Jersey and a leased facility in Atlanta. It ships the other half in direct containers from the factory.

The China warehouse isn't expected to replace the domestic warehouses anytime soon. It will help provide inventory for those facilities as needed.

Intercon tries to maintain a 90-day inventory in its domestic warehouses, but that isn't always possible, said Sam Turpin, company sales director. That's where the China warehouse will help out.

"If we are running low on inventory in our domestic warehouses, then we'll be able to have a quick-ship program to get that inventory built back up," he said.

He said the China warehouse will become a growing factor, particularly with container-direct sales. The facility is expected to begin shipping containers by early February.

Turpin said the warehouse also will help the company cut shipping times from Asia by as much as two months — to about 30 days, from the current 60 to 90 days.

He said the facility also will make Intercon more competitive by offering its customers a greater variety of goods at container pricing.

It's too early to say how the China warehouse could affect domestic operations, Turpin said.

"We'll adjust warehousing as the industry requires," he said. "We'll do what our customers want us to do. If they want us to have them in the U.S., we'll have them in the U.S. If they want us to have (goods) in the Chinese warehouse, we'll increase our abilities overseas."