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www.IndependentRetailer.com COMPANY PROFILE Duke Imports Expands
INITIALLY FOUNDED by two employees, with a container of blankets, operating out of a rented storage facility, Duke Im- ports has expanded in the past eight years and now occupies a 75,000 square foot warehouse to meet the needs of its customers. The home textile wholesaler cur- rently carries fi ve lines of acrylic mink blankets, two lines of com- forters and comforter sets, eight lines of microfi ber bed sheet sets, and two novelty lines of dream catchers and hair accessories/ extensions. After moving to An- gola from Kendallville, IN, in 2005, Duke Imports rented a second warehouse to handle all of its business. Yet, want- ing to consolidate into one central location, the compa- ny recently purchased a new building and moved in on June 1, allowing them to lo- cate all of their inventory and warehousing functions, as well as offi ce and executive staff, under one roof, which gave them the opportunity to streamline sales, shipping and receiving operations. “We looked at several build-
ings, and had one specifi cally in mind that appeared to be vacant and we were able to come to terms with the owner,” says Marty Kirkendall, market- ing director for Duke Imports. “What we were looking for was something that was larger than the combined size of our origi- nal building and the warehouse
70 November 2011
we rented, so we had room to grow beyond that capacity. The square footing is between 75,000 to 80,000 square feet, about fi ve times the size of our former building, so we have a lot of room now and we’re fi lling it up.” Kirkendall notes that the extra space allows the company to keep its stock current, as well as replenished. “A lot of our cus- tomers buy in big quantities,” he says. “We need space where we have enough inventory to not get into stock-out situations, and we had some problems with that
There was not much talk
of moving out of Kendallville, Kirkendall says, as the city is well-positioned at the intersec- tion of I-80 and I-90 going east and west and I-69 running north and south. In addition, the com- pany is up to ten employees at the location. Kirkendall says that only four years ago, the company employed only three, adding two or three new people every year since that point as the company continues to grow. “We just keep chipping away,”
Kirkendall says. “We maintain an online presence on our website, and do advertis- ing on all the major search engines. The pace we are growing is comfortable. One thing that is important is that we’re very service oriented. Our general rule of thumb is just about every sale made is shipped the same day it’s placed.” One of the hall- marks of the company is its high quality product. Prices are competitive in the mar-
in the smaller building because we just didn’t have the space to bring in a large quantity of ev- erything. Now we’re at a point where stock-outs very seldom oc- cur, and when they do, it’s only a couple of days to a week.” Duke Imports also plans on increasing the number of containers at the warehouse by 10 to 15 percent, because the business is growing and adding new customers on a daily basis.
ket, without sacrifi cing quality. “Sometimes our price may be a little higher, but we can virtually guarantee that our quality is go- ing to be a lot higher. We actively seek out products of competi- tors and purchase them from vendors to compare their goods with ours, and based on current quality standards and measure- ments, we’re always ahead of the pack,” Kirkendall adds.
continued on page 119 INDEPENDENTRETAILER
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