Keep Your Product Vendors in Line

| Melissa Dowling

Multichannel merchants could be doing a better job keeping tabs on their merchandise vendors, according to Curt Barry, president of operations consultancy F. Curtis Barry & Co. Specifically, Barry told attendees at the NCOF show in Las Vegas last month that more direct merchants should be using vendor scorecards.

Furloughs for L.L. Bean Call Center Workers

| Jim Tierney

Outdoor gear and apparel merchant L.L. Bean will furlough about 75% of its staff – all but 50 of its 200 workers – at the Bangor, ME-based call center starting in May, according to the Kennebec (ME) Journal/Morning Sentinel.

From OMS to IPR

| Jeff Morris

As the direct marketing industry has evolved into multichannel selling, its system requirements have evolved as well, says systems guru Ernie Schell.

An Operations Rebel with a Cause

| Jeff Morris

If you’re going to give advice on breaking the rules of fulfillment, it helps to be intimately familiar with those rules to be one of the people who helped

Surveying the software landscape

| Curt Barry

Multichannel merchants shopping for direct and retail systems have long complained that there were few choices in terms of vendors and their offerings.