PERSONAL bests

According to JBB's marketing staff, the system has made it easier to create and generate existing promotional materials. It also makes it practical to print materials on an as-needed basis, which reduces the amount of material that becomes obsolete and gets trashed.

In terms of managing its print buying, interfacing with NCL online has enabled the company to gang production of non-time-sensitive orders into quarterly drop ship dates. JBB gains cumulative price breaks as a result, since NCL is able to create more efficient press runs. The resulting savings totaled more than $100,000 in the system's first full year of operation, with the average quarterly cost reduction due to drop shipping approaching 30 percent.