Electronic Retailer - May 2011 - 39

Growing Upward and Outward
As the client list grew, so did the company’s need for additional space. Motivational spent 25 years in Commerce, Calif.. “When we first went into business, transportation of goods was handled by railroad, and in order to receive goods from manufacturers, you had to have a rail spur,” Altman explains. “This was years before the trucking industry rose to prominence. [The] city of Commerce offered rail spurs for each individual warehouse, so we were taking hundreds of rail cars per month into the warehouse. And as our business expanded, we had to continue to get buildings that had rail spurs.” Gradually, the trucking industry took over, and Motivational began looking for more economically viable options for cultivating its operations. Thus, the company relocated its headquarters to Chino, Calif. – a decision that, Altman confesses, was a big mistake. “We had moved into a building that gave us basically no room for expansion at that time.” He eventually found the ideal location just a few miles away that enabled the company to grow as needed. Today, Motivational operates in 800,000 square feet, where it provides such services as warehouse inventory, customer services, shipping and tracking, assembly, data management/reporting, order and Hispanic fulfillment and fundraising. However, square footage isn’t the only thing to expand over the years. Motivational employs approximately 350 people, and many of them have been with the company since the Star Wars days. In fact, all of the company’s supervisors, department managers and other key personnel have been with the fulfillment house a minimum of 20 years – and some even 30 years. “We have children of employees who are managing departments now. This is truly a family business both in the ownership and in the employees.”

companies housed under one roof: the direct response division and the retail distribution division. Altman explains that many of their clients are duel customers, “where they not only use our direct response services, but we also warehouse and ship their retail customers.” The retail business started in a 10 x 10 office with about 12,000 square feet. Says Altman, “We’re proud to say in the past six-and-a-half years, it’s now expanded to 600,000 square feet, and we’ve shipped products for over 440 different retail chains in the past three years.” Some of those retailers include Walmart, Target, Sam’s Club, Costco and Home Depot. Despite feeling the economic pinch these past few years with direct response, Altman says his retail business is booming. In fact, it’s been necessary for the company to grow again – not unlike the scenario in Commerce. To date, the company has three locations, with the probability of opening a fourth location at the end of this year.

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State-of-the-Art Technology
What makes Motivational innovative? “In the past three years, we’ve spent a tremendous amount of money and time improving our information systems both internally and externally for our customers,” notes Altman. For direct response, the company offers its InfoShare 3.0 program, an online application that gives customers a complete and running history of their business on a daily basis. He also credits their Logistica program, which is a real-time online retail logistics application. “We’ve really put a lot of emphasis on giving this information to our clients in a way that’s going to be useful to them.”

We offer full-range order processing from custom packaging and hand kitting to pick and pack services for our directto-consumer, business-to-consumer, and business-to-business clients. Our state-ofthe art INVENTORY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM ensures that your products are stocked, and your orders are tracked with comprehensive WEB REPORTING. Let our warehousing, fulﬁllment and shipping expertise improve your bottom line.

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Entering a New Chapter
Big changes are on the horizon for Motivational. In April, the company began a new era when Altman welcomed his daughter and son, Andrea Stuhley and Tony Altman, as his new business partners. The joint venture emerged after Landon announced his retirement.

EAST COAST / WEST COAST

Launching into Retail
Today, Motivational Fulfillment & Logistics Services is divided into two

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May 2011 | electronicRETAILER

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Electronic Retailer - May 2011

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Electronic Retailer - May 2011