|
WFS began operations in 1989 as Mid South Pick N Pack. The company was formed as a third party logistics company with office space, warehousing, transportation management, and IT support. The company would handle warehousing and inventory management for its clients and maintain inventory files that were interchanged with the client via high speed modem connectivity utilizing cutting edge technology. The company was one of the first in Nashville to utilize a wide area network (WAN) computer network to communicate with its clients.
Shortly after opening its doors the company found that the publishing industry was a huge market in the Nashville area as the publishing industry was a large part of the Nashville industrial base. After a few years of servicing the local market the company had expanded and had over sixty percent of its revenue coming from book and music publishers.
As the company was growing steadily, the publishers started asking management to consider expanding into sales representation for the client publishers and in 1992 the management decided to take the leap and created it's book distribution and sales division. In order to make the expansion more viable, management purchased a children's book publishing company with an established sales force and a staff of publishing experts to make sure the support offered to the publishers was consistent with their industry needs and past experiences.
At the end of 1995 the company was operating three divisions of the company; Ideals Children's Books, APG Sales & Distribution, and Mid South Pick N Pack with annual revenue in excess of $30,000,000 annually. The largest volume came from the APG division as APG had grown to representing almost three hundred small to medium size publishers. However, this rein was short lived as the publishing industry took a number of very severe blows starting in 1996. This included the collapse of the ID wholesaler network from over 400 to less than 50 wholesale rack jobbers, the reduction of independent book stores from over 4,000 to approximately 1,200 and the huge expansion of Internet business activity. These changes led to the company divesting itself of the majority of the book publishing division and changing its APG book distribution business model significantly. At this point in time the company, while remaining very proactive in the publishing industry, has reduced its book client list and focuses on servicing only a select group of less than 100 core publishers.
During the transitions in the book industry, the company has focused its energy on becoming experts in automated order fulfillment support. This expansion has lead to the company becoming experts in data file management, information caging, E-commerce shopping cart order fulfillment support, producing personalized membership cards and collateral material, printing and mailing large volumes of direct mail marketing materials for both B2B and B2C type applications and much, much more.
Today the company operates as WFS, LLC, APG Sales & Distribution, and as Mid South Pick N Pack with each division having a focus on each of the specific markets each division serves.
|
