Unlike many companies you may know about, Drysdales Western Wear fulfills its Internet and call-center orders in its home base of Tulsa, Okla. You won’t find Drysdales call-center employees working in Timbuktu.
We decided to track one Drysdales order and show you how a package gets mailed to your door.
At 9:35 a.m. on a Thursday, call-center employee Suzanne Bryan takes a phone order for a pair of Justin boots from a customer in Minnesota. All of the details are entered into a central computer system.
Suzanne Bryan takes a phone call from a customer in Drysdales' call center. The customer wants one pair of Justin boots.
Tina Miller, who works in Drysdales’ warehouse, checks all orders coming in to the system at least three times a day — four if it’s Christmas season. On this day, she makes her first check of orders at 10:30 a.m. Purchases are then authorized via Internet to customers’ credit cards. Miller also separates orders by international, ground or rush delivery. On this day, Miller sees orders from 20 states and three foreign countries.
In the warehouse, Tina Miller checks orders coming from the call center and the Internet.
Finally, she prints the orders on paper and places the stack on a nearby “picks” table. This is where a warehouse employee picks up one order sheet at a time and retrieves the product.
Tina drops off a printout of orders onto a table, where employees will pick them up and retrieve products.
Kay Bright grabs the order sheet with the Justin boots going to the Minnesota customer. Within two minutes, she finds a box with the boots.
Kay Bright finds the pair of Justin boots for a customer.
Before placing it on the packing line, she opens it and inspects the merchandise. Once in a blue moon, a manufacturer will put the wrong size or wrong type of boots inside.
Kay inspects the boots to make sure they are the right size and type.
Satisfied the boots match the description, she closes the box, electronically scans the bar code on the side for inventory purposes, and places it on the packing line.
Kay scans the box with a UPC reader before sending it down the packing line.
Sandy Carriero grabs the box from the packing line at 11:10 a.m., swiftly tapes it, and sends it back down the line.
Sandy Carreiro prepares the box of Justin boots for shipping.
Perry Bowling weighs the package on an electronic scale. A computer system automatically prints a shipping sticker containing the proper postage. He affixes it to the package, scans it with a UPC code reader, and chooses the proper shipping carrier. On this day, it’s United Parcel Service.
Perry Bowling scans and weighs the Justin boots package before applying a shipping sticker.
The package of Justin Boots is placed in a UPS cart at 11:19 a.m. A UPS truck driver will show up later in the day to pick up the packages and send them on their way.
Perry places the package onto a UPS cart, where it will be shipped out later that day.
A video of the packaging operation at the Drysdales warehouse can be seen below:
