Buzz Van Santvoord is the vice president of fulfillment and facility management for 1-800-Flowers.com’s Children’s Group and Plow & Hearth titles. As such, he manages fulfillment at the Westbury, NY-based company’s facilities in Madison, VA, and Vandalia, OH. In addition to overseing fulfillment for the Plow & Hearth, Plow & Hearth Home, and Problem Solvers “country living” catalogs and the HearthSong and Magic Cabin Dolls toy titles, he fulfills a variety of the parent company’s nonfloral orders, as well as supplying product and materials directly to its floral network. Despite all this juggling, however, Van Santvoord made time to answer a few questions from Multichannel Merchant/O+F.
What’s your biggest fulfillment nightmare?
Weather events during peak times [such as Christmas] can result in associates being unable to get to work, as well as delays and stoppages of transportation in and out of a facility. Total dependence on order-taking and fulfillment systems also creates a gigantic risk factor. Customer buying patterns have resulted in major order demands during the last three weeks of the holiday season. Being down for one or two days at that time of year may make it impossible to dig out of the hole.
What’s been your biggest fulfillment challenge?
Recruiting enough quality seasonal help. In a rural location with unemployment less than 3%, there just are not enough people looking for temporary work.
If you had to choose: backorders or overstocks?
I’d rather be overstocked. That’s a no-win decision, but putting my operations hat on, I would prefer to fulfill orders completely out of the gate without incurring backorders. There are several creative ways to liquidate overstocks, such as through our Web outlet store or through package inserts or through our quickly growing retail division.
Your fulfillment philosophy?
Operations: We make it happen!
Biggest surprise or lessons learned this holiday season?
We must continue to find ways to work smarter, not just harder. Intense order volume pressures at the end of the season with inadequate staff availability are creating the potential for a train wreck we must avoid. It will take some financial resources to keep Santa’s fulfillment train on the track. I have the best management staff in the industry, bar none. They have always done what it takes to get the job done and provide our customers with world-class service — and I’m talking about 23 days straight without a day off!
How do you juggle disparate merchandise lines?
It certainly can be a bit of a challenge, but Plow & Hearth has always been a multicategory retailer, so we have had 25 years to learn how to manage them. If we don’t know how by now it’s time to form a rock ‘n’ roll band and head out on tour.
Most interesting thing or favorite possession hanging in your office?
A U.S. Postal Service Mail Center Manager of the Year award, with a commemorative print of the FDNY flag-raising at Ground Zero. When I am feeling frustrated, looking at this picture quickly puts things into perspective.
Your job in five words or less?
Sky’s the limit!