Floral accessories business expands

Business Today

BERNIE -- Barely three months ago, Distributor Services LLC began its expanded operation in Bernie from its facility in Piggott, Ark.

Last March, Stan Morris, managing director of the company, projected a workforce of 40 to 60 employees within 30 days of starting operations in the former Brown Shoe Co. building. Currently, 54 people are employed in Bernie. Also, there are six employees in Piggott and seven outside wholesale representatives located in Pennsylvania and throughout the Southeast.

Morris believes the company is poised to have 200 people on its payroll within the next four years.

Morris expressed delight in the progress the company has made since moving its national headquarters to Bernie. The biggest obstacle he's faced, Morris said, is the perception that the business is limited to telemarketing. Those employees involved in the telemarketing aspect do not phone individuals, but keep in touch with flower shops and grocery stores, Distributor Services' major customers.

"We expect to expand the assembly line to 14 workers in the next two months as a result of some patented items we'll be assembling," Morris said. Machinery to print balloons also will be added in the next few months.

The company supplies floral accessories such as mylar balloons, containers, plush animals, baskets, candy and silk flowers to retail and mass markets. Distributor Services also is one of the few distributors able to offer a wide range of licensed products such as Spirit, Scooby Doo, Blues Clues and Barbie.

The company imports a lot of items such as baskets, stuffed toys and ceramics from China, but most of its inventory is American-made, according to Morris. All items are warehoused at and shipped from the Bernie facility. Distributor Services not only sells from coast-to-coast, it recently has gone international with sales in South America as well, Morris said.

It was his wife's early experiments in telemarketing that eventually led to the formation of Distributor Services. According to Morris, she started selling baskets from the basement of their home eight or nine years ago. At one point, he admitted, they were nearly out of business with no products to sell and no money.

"We didn't know what we were going to do. We came up with a product called Touch Stones. We polished rocks, made bags, tied them and put little verses on them. We had a Touch Stone of Love, a Touch Stone of Hope - we had Touch Stones for every occasion. We literally sold a ton of rocks," Morris said.

With continued growth, the couple soon started Distributor Services LLC and teamed with an investment group that gave them the ability to grow as fast as they have.