GNC Case Study

General Nutrition Centers Automate Trade Show Orders with XPO Solution from Barcoding, Inc.

In 1935, General Nutrition Centers founder David Shakarian became a pioneer of nutritional marketing when he opened a small store in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania called Lackzoom, specializing in yogurt, a food his father helped introduce in the United States. The store also sold honey and "health sandwiches." Though health food was widely thought to be little more than a passing fad at the time, Shakarian's shop had many loyal customers and he opened a second store six months later. By the early '80s, the number of GNC locations had grown to over 1,000. Today, GNC is the largest nationwide specialty retailer of vitamin, mineral, herbal, and sports nutrition supplements, as well as many personal care and related products, operating more than 5,000 retail outlets throughout the United States and in 29 foreign countries.

GNC's annual trade show is an integral part of its overall marketing effort. Not only does it showcase new products and trends in health, nutrition and fitness, but it also provides a major product ordering opportunity for GNC franchisees. One key indicator of the show's success is measured by how much merchandise has been ordered and how well GNC has expedited the shipments. For many years, trade show orders were taken by hand and typing them consumed countless employee hours, in addition to allowing for data- entry errors. GNC knew it needed a more efficient and accurate way of processing the trade show orders.

GNC also realized that its managers needed to gather more timely information on exhibit attendance and the orders generated than was possible from a hand-entry process. There were no effective means to confirm manual orders, and communication between the company and the vendors at the trade show had to be improved. GNC sought a technology solution that would allow two-way instant communication with each vendor to greatly improve the service level GNC could provide at its annual trade show.

GNC turned to Barcoding, Inc. for a comprehensive trade show management system called XPO. With this solution, many operations common to trade show exhibitors could be streamlined by automating procedures that were once done by hand. XPO runs on the Symbol Technologies SPT 1846, a Palm OS-based hand-held computer with integrated bar code scanning and wireless LAN connectivity. XPO works as an order entry system, a lead tracking system, and a wireless marketing and sales tool. The wireless aspect of the solution allows for instant feedback and follow-up with potential customers. XPO has a central backbone that handles core communication tasks and stores common business data and rules. Other functionalities are added onto the core application to create a custom solution to handle each customer's unique requirements.

At a recent trade show, GNC was able to use their 165 handheld computers to place orders in an automated fashion. The company also saw their sales increase more than 150% during the past three years because their manual data entry system was replaced with mobile computing and wireless technologies. Orders are now processed much more quickly and accurately, and GNC has been able to significantly increase their trade show revenues compared to the previous two years.

Terry Huff, GNC's Director of Wholesale, is more than pleased with the new trade show order-taking system: "Barcoding, Inc.'s XPO system gave us the ability to achieve record-setting sales conventions for the last three years. Our vendors and franchisees appreciate the speed and accuracy of the XPO system and feel more confident that their orders will be handled properly. The Barcoding technical staff members continually challenged themselves to make improvements to the system to benefit GNC and help increase sales volume. They were very professional and worked seamlessly with the GNC trade show staff."

According to Ken Stott, Barcoding, Inc.'s Senior Account Manager, the two companies complimented one another: "GNC and Barcoding, Inc. represent a true business partnership. Both companies worked closely together to develop a wireless, hand-held system that would fit GNC's needs. Year after year, the performance of the system exceeds expectations because of the close collaboration between the two companies. I am very proud to be part of this process and to see the success that can come from true teamwork."

Health food pioneer David Shakarian passed away in 1984, but his ideals live on. The future looks fit indeed for the company he founded as a young man in Pittsburgh nearly 70 years ago, thanks in part to the XPO trade show management system from Barcoding, Inc.

To learn more, please contact Barcoding Inc.

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