Getting a shipment from Arkansas to Missouri is no great trick. But getting a shipment from India and then to Arkansas and on to Missouri is a different proposition altogether.

I.O. Metro, a Rogers, Ark.-based “specialty lifestyle” furniture importer and retailer, has encountered all the problems and frustrations of dealing with both domestic and international supply chains since it was started in 2005.

The company is the brainchild of CEO Jay Howard. Immediately after college, Howard took a job as an account manager for a lighting company; his clients included Target and Walmart. His entrepreneurial spirit soon emerged, and after learning all he could about importing directly from manufacturers, he joined several partners to form the company at the age of 22.

The enterprise was initially called Interior Outlet, but Howard felt that the term “outlet” conjured up images of a cheap, unappealing warehouse environment. His vision was to create a group of stores with high-quality, reasonably priced items, and the name was quickly changed to reflect this ideal.

“We’re a growing company and moving very quickly,” Howard says. “We needed solutions like inventory tracking to make our supply chain more visible and a transportation provider that could become a strategic partner, someone to grow right alongside us.”

I.O. Metro offers an eclectic selection of furniture, accessory items and art that appeals to customers seeking alternatives to traditional pieces. The company’s first store was an immediate success among shoppers in Bentonville, Ark. (home of Walmart), selling more than 80 percent of its stock on opening day entirely through word-of-mouth.

The company’s goal is to revolutionize the furniture business by developing an extensive line of unique residential and commercial furniture and accessory items at extremely low prices.

The process begins with an in-house design team that develops new products based on ideas from customers and sales associates. CAD drawings and renderings are created, and each item undergoes a rigorous approval process before the company chooses which of its suppliers is best suited to produce it.

DC serves 11 stores
The company currently operates 11 stores (ranging in size from 7,000 to 13,000 sq. ft) in markets such as Memphis, Little Rock, Ark., Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Okla., Jackson, Miss., and Columbia, Mo. Dallas and St. Louis are among the major metro areas most likely to join the line-up next.

Two stores are franchised, but “while we will continue to have a universal franchise offering out there, that’s not our initiative right now,” Howard says.

All stores are supported by a newly expanded 40,000-sq.-ft. distribution center in Bentonville. “The facility is triple-racked so we are in pretty good shape” for the time being, Howard says.

Approximately 80 percent of the company’s merchandise is imported, much of it coming from suppliers in India, China, Indonesia and Mexico. In all, I.O. Metro is drawing merchandise from vendors in 14 different countries, all with different shipping schedules.

“We receive an average of four to eight containers per week from our various suppliers,” Howard says. The stores “have very small backrooms, so every store gets weekly deliveries from the distribution centers.”

The supply chain is running fairly smoothly for a relatively young operation, Howard says, but I.O Metro went through the same growing pains as any other retailer. Tracking shipments and gaining efficiencies throughout the supply chain were the major challenges.

“We’ve managed to gain a lot of visibility over the past year and that’s made everything a little easier,” he says. “But ETA dates are tough, given what’s going on internationally and we are running plus-or-minus two weeks … from the time we think it’s shipping from India or China to the time it gets to our door.”

I.O. Metro, Howard says, viewed a partner like Plano, Texas-based Transplace “as the solution to all the issues we encountered. We were trying to handle things on a supplier-by-supplier basis either through their brokers or handling it ourselves. So we were eager to consolidate and streamline the company’s entire logistics process, particularly international.”

At present, Transplace is handling all of I.O. Metro’s container freight and a good portion of its domestic full-truckload business. “We just create a purchase order, send it to them and, hopefully, the next time we hear from them is when the shipment is ready to come into the warehouse,” Howard says.

“There are a lot of moving parts to our business. But they’ve done a very good job and the implementation was as seamless as could be expected.”

Simplifying management of the supply chain has also enabled I.O. Metro to keep prices down and “set our price points earlier,” Howard says. In the past, the cost of goods “might have been plus-or-minus 15 percent: We really didn’t know until we got the bill. But keeping our freight percentage down has made us more comfortable” setting retail pricing.

International security
Another major piece of the logistics puzzle that I.O. Metro and Transplace are working on now is Custom-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) certification, a voluntary program established by U.S. Customs and Border Protection to build cooperative relationships that strengthen and improve the international supply chain and U.S. border security.

Established in 2001, C-TPAT is the first worldwide supply chain security initiative in which participating organizations fully cooperate with U.S. Customs to establish acceptable security practices throughout their entire supply chain operations.

Transplace received C-TPAT certification in May, and I.O. Metro is hoping to be able to use that status to facilitate more rapid movement of its cargo through major ports. “We are working with them now to figure out how to keep containers from being pulled so often by Customs,” Howard says.

Fine-tuning logistics is an ongoing process, and another area in need of near-term attention is the process of moving inventory from the stores or DC to customers. “The big thing for us now is trying to get LTL or a white-glove delivery service that is easy to track,” Howard says. “It’s tough to give customers a good ETA.”

This, in turn, is impacting I.O. Metro’s expansion into e-commerce – a potentially lucrative channel. “Everything behind the scenes is ready and the site is available for viewing,” Howard says, “but we won’t sell online until we find the right solution.” The company’s goal is to go live with online ordering next month.