LINCOLN
Mercury
"Superstar"
Used Cars
TOYOTA
Ma
71Da
41111
DISC page 63
HYUrlDfli *SUZUKI.
Ask anyone who owns one.-
"EQUITY TRADE"
International Net Sales
WE PAY OFF YOUR TRADE
REGARDLESS OF HOW MUCH YOU OWE!
AUTOMOTIVE
GROUP
International Represents a Growing
Percentage of Handleman's Total Business
(In millions)
WE GUARANTEE...
120
100
80
A F-A-R-R BETTER DEAL!
60
40
"The Bigger We Get... The Better Deals You Get!"
THE SUPERS-TAR
CALL 1-800-MEL-FARR
DEALER
24 Hour Information Center
20
FY 95
Est. in 1975
Our CD'S
FeA5STIAR
■ ■
Don't play
Music, but could
be Music
to your Ears
11....._
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One Year Certificate
5.87%
A P Y *
Phone number: (248)-338-7700 or (248)-352-7700
2600 Telegraph Rd.•Bloomfield Hills•MI 48302
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NOW TAKING ORDERS
ON
1998 MODELS!
FOR YOUR BEST PRICE
AND
PROFESSIONAL SERVICE
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TAMAROFF DODGE
24625 West 12 Mile (Just west of Telegraph) • Southfield, MI
DIRECT:
(248) 354-6600
223-8516
Get Results...
Advertise in our new Entertainment Section!
Call The Sales Department (810) 354-7123 Ext. 209
THE JEWISH NEWS
FY 96
FY 97
at a 100 percent exchange that
may have slowed down or didn't
perform as we expected."
To prevent those surprises,
the Handleman Company last
year put into effect a new pro-
gram that will look at what sold
by title in an individual store in
the past. With that program,
they can actually do weighted av-
erages of titles and can tell a re-
tailer that, for example, a new
country and western release will
be 50 percent like the last Garth
Brooks, 30 percent like the last
by another name artist, and 20
percent of the category as a
whole. That enables Handleman
to forecast sales for the individ-
ual store and even ship their re-
quired supply for any chosen
number of weeks.
Mr. Handleman is all too
aware that the market for the
company's product lines has
shrunk as Wal-Mart, Target and
Kmart eliminated other mass
market retailers. Montgomery
Ward, a company that Handle-
man has done business with for
almost 50 years, is in bankrupt-
cy. And F.W. Woolworth's 400
stores are closing their doors.
The need for the Handleman
Company to diversify is made
clear in the company's annual re-
port. For the last three years,
just two customers, Kmart and
Wal-Mart, have accounted for an
average of 65 percent of the com-
pany's sales.
But the changing demands of
the retail world haven't left the
Handleman Company unpre-
pared. "Another major initiative
we put in place in the last three
years is automated distribution
centers (ADC)," said Strome.
"We have put two in place, start-
ing with one in Sparks, Nev., a
325,000-square-foot facility (to
service the Western states)
which we opened in 1994.
"We took three existing
branches, all of which were car-
rying inventory, all doing re-
ordering and shipping, and
merged them into this one large
facility. Then we automated the
picking, packing, and pricing au-
thorizations."
From the time an individual
puts an item into a slot (on a ma-
chine which Strome compares to
an 80-foot-long, upside-down Pez
1995
1996
1997
dispenser, with a belt running
through the middle), an order is
transferred from the computer
to the machine, and it actually
becomes store specific.
"You know which store it be-
longs to, because it compares
what's on the belt to what's on
the order, and if it matches,
prints a ticket and puts it on the
product. Then it reads the tick-
et on the product, plus the bar
code on the product, to verify
that they're the same and still in
order.
"If the store requires it to be
in a keeper, it will automatical-
ly put it in one, and then present
it to our person to put it in a box,"
said Strome.
Developed in Austria, the sys-
tem is called A-Frame Tech-
nology and the Handleman
Company was the first to use it
on a single-file basis. The six
lines in Sparks move four units
per second, generating 24 units
per second through the auto-
mated process.
In Indianapolis, site of the sec-
ond ADC, the Handleman Com-
pany merged six facilities into a
new 385,000-square-foot facility
in 1996. "We left the sales offices
out there to continue to manage
the field sales, but took all the
inventory out of the branches,
which allowed us to reduce our
inventories by about $90 million
over the last two years," said
Strome. It reduced operating
costs significantly.
Mr. Handleman said the corn-
pany is now looking at the East
Coast where they have three ex-
isting facilities.
The company's second division
is Handleman International,
"and that services four countries
today," said Strome. Handleman
has been in Canada since 1962,
and followed Kmart and Wal-
Mart into Mexico in 1994.
In Mexico, Handleman's mar-
ket share of the retail music busi-
ness is 20 percent, a significant
amount for what was essential-
ly a start-up company three
years ago. By some published es-
timates, Handleman is already
the largest marketer of music
and video in Mexico.
"In 1995, we followed Wal-
Mart into Brazil and Argentina,"
DISC page 66