Riley Life Logistics (www.rileylife.com) is a rapidly growing, mission-driven company based out of RTP, NC. At Riley Life, we provide order fulfillment for online retailers as well as special projects with logistics needs for marketing departments and agencies. We are currently looking for an intern to assist with social media and marketing.

The intern will be directly involved with the social media, customer service, and marketing efforts of Riley Life. The intern will mainly be helping with Facebook and Twitter accounts, customer inquiries, company blog, and email campaigns. You will also have the opportunity to be involved in other areas of the company as needed.

Given the growth of the company, there may be opportunities for growth after your internship.

The intern will receive hourly pay based on level of experience. Please only respond if you can commit to at least 10-15 hours/week in our RTP office.

Please feel free to share with anyone interested. Resume should be submitted to Chris Bingham at cbingham (at) rileylife (dot) com.

BY STEPHANIE CLIFFORD – New York Times News Service

Oren Etzioni writes articles about artificial intelligence for scholarly journals, is a renowned expert on data mining and gained fame when Microsoft paid $115 million for Farecast, an airline-ticket price predictor he founded.

Now, Etzioni, who teaches computer science at the University of Washington, has directed his considerable intellect at the American ritual of shopping for bargains on Black Friday. After examining billions of prices of consumer electronics, he decided to spend the busiest shopping day of the year scuba-diving in Bali.

Why? It is not until early December, Etzioni’s research shows, that prices are likely to be the lowest for electronics, products that are among the biggest sellers on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

“The bottom line is, Black Friday is for the retailers to go from the red into the black,” he said. “It’s not really for people to get great deals on the most popular products.”

What the professor has determined with a complex computer algorithm for consumer electronics, others have found through less scientifically rigorous means for other products, including clothing and toys: Despite all the ads that suggest otherwise, the lowest prices tend to come at other times.

In the case of toys, stores actually offer the steepest discounts in the weeks immediately after Thanksgiving because they want to unload the inventory not sold on Black Friday, said Dan de Grandpre, who has tracked deals for 15 years at Dealnews.com.

“Toys have a very short shelf life,” he said. “On Dec. 26, they’re not really useful to retailers anymore, so they have to get rid of it and start slashing prices early in December.”

And it is a precise window of opportunity.

In the week or so before Christmas, toy prices shoot back up, de Grandpre’s tracking shows, as last-minute shoppers come stampeding for Barbies and Lego sets and stores are less desperate “because they’ve been able to reduce their inventory.”

The added value Etzioni brings to price discussions is the computer crunching of the trove of data provided by online prices – and specific recommendations about when to make a purchase.

Following the approach of Farecast, now part of Microsoft’s Bing search engine, the professor’s startup company, Decide.com, studies current and historical prices, information about new models and rumors about new product introductions to figure out the best time to buy.

Type in the name of a product – a Soundcast SurroundCast speaker system, for instance – and Decide.com will pull prices from around the Web, and tell you to buy or wait. In the SurroundCast case, it showed this week that prices were at $150 in early September, and had now gone up to $160.

The verdict: wait. Decide.com said it was 96 percent confident that prices for the speaker system would drop within two weeks.

Retailers do discount smaller appliances on the Friday after Thanksgiving. “You’ll see small kitchen electronics under $20, sometimes under $10 – blenders, toasters,” Etzioni said. “But it’s low-end, cheap Chinese knockoffs that are heavily discounted – often there’s a mail-in rebate hassle that goes with it – but it’s a very, very low price.”

That is true of most of the biggest deals on that Friday, he said. Because retailers want to impress shoppers with very low prices, the quality of the discounted items can be low.

For higher-end electronics, de Grandpre’s trends show, shoppers should wait until the week after Thanksgiving.

“Black Friday is about cheap stuff at cheap prices, and I mean cheap in every connotation of the word,” de Grandpre said.

Manufacturers like Dell will allow their cheap laptops to be discounted via retailers on that Friday, but they will reserve markdowns through their own sites for later.

Did Decide.com agree with the laptop advice?

It did.

A low-end Dell laptop had dropped to $249 at Amazon this week, and Decide said to buy it now. But for a more feature-heavy laptop, priced at $1,528 at Sears and $1,541 at PCNation, Decide said to wait, as it expected prices to stay flat or decline by up to $339 within two weeks.

By Associated Press
On the eve of “Cyber Monday,” online retailers reported an even stronger start to the holiday shopping season than brick-and-mortar stores.

Research firm comScore reported on Sunday that e-commerce spending jumped 26 percent on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, compared with the same day a year ago. ComScore reported $816 million in online sales for the day, up from $648 million.

The 26 percent growth rate for online sales compares with a 7 percent retail sales increase reported for Black Friday by ShopperTrak, which gathers data from individual stores and shopping malls. At $11.4 billion, the brick-and-mortar sales total still dwarfs the online total.

Gian Fulgoni, comScore chairman, said in a statement that e-commerce enjoyed a banner day, despite some analysts’ predictions that early store openings on Black Friday could hurt online sales.

“With brick-and-mortar retail also reporting strong gains on Black Friday, it’s clear that the heavy promotional activity had a positive impact on both channels,” Fulgoni said.

Thanksgiving is also a big day for online sales, and comScore reported an 18 percent increase this year compared with a year ago, with $479 million in sales.

Online sales also have been strong throughout November. Online sales through Saturday rose 15 percent compared with the same period a year ago, according to comScore, which is based on Reston, Va. Through the first 25 days of the month, online sales have totaled $12.74 billion.

ComScore said 50 million Americans visited online retail sites on Black Friday, up 35 percent from a year ago. Each of the top five retail sites reported double-digit gains in visitors, in percentage terms, led by top retail site Amazon. Walmart ranked second, followed by Best Buy, Target and Apple.

Next up is Cyber Monday, when many online retailers run promotions for the first business day of the week following Thanksgiving. Cyber Monday sales topped $1 billion last year, making it the heaviest day of online spending ever. ComScore’s Fulgoni expects another record will be set this year.

Toys R Us got a jump on things by offering Cyber Monday deals beginning at 6 p.m. on Sunday. The retailer’s website also offered free shipping on purchases of $49 or more, through the holiday weekend until Dec. 3.

Amazon and Walmart launched weeklong online sales promotions on Sunday. Amazon’s offers included a discounted price of $259 on a Kindle DX e-reader that normally sells at $379. That offer was scheduled to end Monday. Walmart expanded its Cyber Week offerings with more than 250 online-only specials, with savings of up to 40 percent. Walmart also offered free shipping on orders of $45 or more.

ComScore reported online sales for Black Friday two days after another researcher, IBM Corp.’s Coremetrics unit, reported a smaller online spending gain for Black Friday. Coremetrics reported a 20 percent increase, compared with comScore’s 26 percent.

CED (Council for Entrepreneurial Development) named the winners of 2011 North Carolina Companies To Watch Award. Riley Life Logistics was selected as one of 25 winners.

Riley Life Logistics will be honored at an awards ceremony September 21st in Bay 7 at the American Tobacco Campus in Durham.

The North Carolina Companies to Watch were selected from an initial pool of more than 200 nominees from across North Carolina. They are privately held companies of between 6-99 employees and $750,000 to $50 million in annual revenue or funds raised from grants, investors or partnerships. The winners represent the geographic regions of the state as well as different sectors of the economy.

“These companies exemplify the entrepreneurial spirit that leads to success in the marketplace even during challenging economic times,” said CED President Joan Siefert Rose. She noted that these companies collectively grew revenue by an annual rate of 32 percent between 2007-2010, and added jobs at an annual rate of 36 per cent during the same period. “CED is proud to recognize the accomplishments of all our 25 winners and their significant contributions to our state’s economy,” Rose said.

“Our research confirms that second-stage companies are the champions of sustainable job creation,” says Penny Lewandowski, director of entrepreneur development at the Edward Lowe Foundation. “They are continuously adding employees, creating five, 10 or 15 jobs each year. When you look at the cumulative effect of this type of job creation, it is significant, making these companies powerhouses when it comes to economic growth. And, in addition to keeping people employed, second-stagers are setting trends in innovation and discovery. Recognizing and serving them is a key economic development strategy,” Lewandowski said.

Full CED press release is here.

Congratulations to all winners!

]]> http://www.rileylife.com/blog/riley-life-wins-company-to-watch-award/feed/ 0 http://www.rileylife.com/blog/riley-life-and-kinder-soles-featured-today-in-raleigh-news-observer/ http://www.rileylife.com/blog/riley-life-and-kinder-soles-featured-today-in-raleigh-news-observer/#comments Fri, 29 Jul 2011 00:56:47 +0000 Chris Bingham http://www.rileylife.com/blog/?p=310

See the article in full here.

Here is a preview:
A little more than a year ago, local boy Mark Saad launched Kinder Soles, a socially conscious footwear company specializing in flip-flops made of recycled materials. Now he’s teamed with Chris Bingham of Riley Life Logistics, a Durham shipping company, to create the SoleMates Foundation. The nonprofit helps provide shoes for needy people who otherwise could not afford to buy footwear.

Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/07/28/1373460/solemates-collects-shoes-for-needy.html#storylink=misearch#ixzz1TS39Evx0

Reposted from the blog of company President & Chief Passion Officer – Chris Bingham

Have you ever thought about the value of a minute of your time? Think about how productive you could be if you aimed to do something of value with each minute of your time. As I work to try to get more value out of my day, I started thinking about how I not only spend the hours of my time but the minutes of my time as well.

Just to set up my punchline to this post, I explored pay by the minute of some high value individuals. Someone that makes $100,000 per year for a salary actually costs a company about $1 per minute of their time. Brian Gallagher, President of United Way Worldwide made $982,768 in 2008. That is almost $10 per minute for his time.

Lebron James averaged just under 39 minutes per game in the 79 games that he played last season for the Miami Heat. He was paid $14.5 million. Thus, the Miami Heat paid him about $4700 per minute of game action for his time. Obviously, they are paying this because of the value he brings to the organization rather than paying him by the minute, but it is interesting to note how irrational it actually sounds to pay someone almost $5000 to spend a minute of their time doing what they love.

I am working on ways to be most productive, but at the same time, I don’t want to devalue the opportunity to share time with others – whether friends, family, coworkers, prospects, or network connections. I also want to learn and stay up-to-date with my time. Is it worth reading a certain blog regularly that might take 2 minutes of your time? What about watching a funny youtube clip that lasts 3 minutes? How about reading that book that “could change your life” that might take 500 minutes to read? Or should you go see an interesting speaker that is in town to talk for 45 minutes?

As a business owner, I often think of situations and dispute resolutions in terms of the greatest value of people’s time. For example, if I have my whole team meet for 15 minutes, it could cost me well over $100. Is the meeting worth it? Does so-and-so need to be there?

As an interesting thought, if you got up one minute earlier for your entire life, you would gain roughly 3 months on your working career. Not a bad start, but where do you draw the line? Should you never sleep? Of course you should…sleep allows you to get the most out of your minutes.

So often you hear people say that they are “busy” or “don’t have enough hours in the day.” There are 10,080 minutes in a week. You can accomplish quite a lot in that amount of time. You have to start by prioritizing.

In fact, my biggest downfall is that I don’t say “no” often enough. Ultimately, I end up not meeting others expectations because I’m overbooked and distracted by where I’m supposed to be next. Steve Jobs and Warren Buffett are both famous for saying that each of their successes are the product of knowing when and how to say “no.” Ultimately freeing up more minutes to give to projects and people that matter most in achieving their goals. I’m working on downsizing my life (“rightsizing” for those of you in the corporate world) to pursue my passions more completely. Over the past year, I’ve become more aware of the minutes I waste in pursuit of things that I’m not truly passionate about.

“Do you have a minute?” “This will only take a minute.” Saying yes to these statements is so easy. Say “no” if you need to. Trying to do more is not how you get more done; you can not create more minutes in your day. Doing less is how you get more done.

What would it mean to give someone else a minute of your time? I say this because if you are willing to give them your time, then you should be fully present for that minute. If they aren’t worth the minute, then be honest and tell them “no” ahead of time.

With that, thank you for taking a minute of your time to read my thoughts. One request – Go spend a minute figuring out what you are passionate about and one more deciding what one thing you can do in the next week – that takes 30 minutes or less – in absolute pursuit of that passion. Let me know how I can help – that is a passion of mine – helping others pursue things they are passionate about. I plan to keep writing about other things I’m passionate about in upcoming blogs.

Steve Jobs: When asked what is the thing he is most proud of what he and Apple has created, this was his answer: “I’m as proud of what we DON’T do as I am of what we do.”

Warren Buffet: When asked for the No. 1 key to his success, this is his consistent answer, “For every 100 great opportunities that are brought to me, I say ‘NO’ 99 times.”

Click here for PDF version of Riley Life Logistics Feature in July 15, 2011 edition of the Triangle Business Journal

Mark Saad, the co-founder and Chief Kinder Sole of Kinder Soles, a socially responsible flip flop company offering footwear made from recycled materials, and Chris Bingham, President and Chief Passion Officer of Riley Life Logistics, a certified B Corporation, today announce the launch of a new non-profit organization, the SoleMates Foundation. Aimed to increase awareness and raise funds to help the ‘footwear shortage movement’ in the United States, the SoleMates Foundation will distribute shoes to individuals lacking access to proper footwear.

A vision of founder Mark Saad’s since he witnessed the tragic living conditions around the world first-hand many years ago, the SoleMates Foundation is part of a commitment to provide proper footwear to those in need. While Mark has been working to make a difference since the launch of Kinder Soles in 2010, the development of SoleMates is the next step. Teaming up with his fellow “40 Under 40” award recipient, Chris Bingham and his company Riley Life Logistics helped fill in the missing pieces and make the foundation a reality.

“When we first started out, Kinder Soles partnered with outside organizations to make our flip flops useful in the fight against the footwear shortage; but we felt there was more we could be doing to help those in our own country,” said Mark Saad, co-founder and Chief Kinder Sole of Kinder Soles. “SoleMates is the realization of my dream to improve the quality of life of people all over the United States. By launching our own foundation, we can more directly impact those closest to us, involve the communities further and ultimately help more people – one pair of shoes at a time.”

Now more than ever, the United States has an increasing number of people who are in need and going without proper footwear. Only halfway into the 2011 calendar year, the United States has seen an extremely high rate of natural disasters. With damages totaling close to $32 billion, the nation has experienced the highest damage cost to-date since 1980, according to the National Climate Data Center. Millions of people have been affected across the country by tornadoes, floods, blizzards, and wildfires, many losing everything that they had. SoleMates was born out of the desire to help those affected in these local communities.

By choosing to focus solely on those in need in the United States, SoleMates stands out from many other organizations by staying green, getting shoes on more feet of those in need, and keeping their carbon footprint low.

The foundation will gather new and gently worn shoes and provide them to those who are in need all across the United States. SoleMates will work closely with church groups and local organizations all across the country to identify regions that are in need. When shoes are donated they are assessed, sorted and then shipped out to the regions according to functionality needs, such as boots and sneakers to locations in the north and flip flops and sandals to locations in the south.

“We are thrilled to partner with Mark to be a part of the SoleMates Foundation. We pride ourselves in supporting worthy causes and helping those in need in our community,” said Chris Bingham, president and chief passion officer of Riley Life Logistics. “An idea that seems so simple, like owning a pair of shoes, can make all the difference in the world. It is a great thing to be able to do what we do best to help those in need.”

Kinder Soles and Riley Life Logistics will both support SoleMates by drawing on each company’s business functions. Each purchase of a pair of Kinder Soles eco-friendly flip flops will provide the funding to send shoes to up to five people. Riley Life will handle the logistics for SoleMates by storing, organizing, prepping, and shipping out all of the donated shoes to those in need.

Consumers who wish to support the SoleMates Foundation can do so via local area shoe drive events and by donating funds to help cover shipping and handling charges incurred to deliver shoes around the country.

More information on the SoleMates Foundation can be found at http://solematesfoundation.org/.

About Kinder Soles
Kinder Soles, co-founded by Mark Saad and Chris Smith, is a socially responsible designer of healthy and eco-friendly flip flops. The company promotes social responsibility through a donation business model that provides the funds to send five pairs of shoes to those in need. Kinder Soles are made from recycled and repurposed materials and have foot beds ergonomically designed to give better support. Find Kinder Soles on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/Kindersoles or online at www.KinderSoles.com.

About Riley Life Logistics
Riley Life Logistics, a Certified B Corporation, is an award-winning provider of global solutions in the areas of international and domestic product fulfillment, kitting, warehousing, and reverse logistics. The “Life of Riley” is a saying meaning “to live a life of luxury that is deserved.” Riley Life aims to provide this life to all stakeholders – owners, employees, customers, and beyond. Riley Life Logistics was recognized as the 2009 Durham Sustainable Business of the Year and 2010 Green Plus North American Small Business Enterprise of the Year, among other awards. Find Riley Life Logistics on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/rllogistics or online at http://www.RileyLife.com.

I will admit that my ideas for solutions here are very forward thinking and optimistic for a “company” that is ultimately a monopoly and obviously funded by outside sources that do not seem to give any regard to the success of this company.  However, as a tax payer and logistics professional touched daily by the services of the United States Postal Service (USPS), I stand in the place of someone interested in helping offer solutions to the current problem that the USPS is facing.

Let me start by framing the problem.  Everyone should by now be aware of the continual losses posted by the USPS and the ongoing discussion as to whether this business should be privatized.    Well, just in case you haven’t heard, the USPS has lost just over $23 Billion since the start of 2007.  Yeah – $23 Billion. That is more than the entire GDP for all but 90 countries in the world.  That’s a sizable hole in the US Government’s wallet.

Here is a graph showing earnings (in $ Billions) for the USPS since 2002.  Data for 2011 includes first half of the year results:

Sure there are multiple excuses including congressional mandate toward pre-funding its Postal Service Retiree Health Benefit Fund, the USPS can’t raise prices of postage outside of a certain margin of the national inflation rate, and of course, the decline in use of postage due to increased use of email and cell phones.

Regardless, all excuses aside and all conventional wisdom already stated (fewer delivery days, reduced staff, privatization, etc.) – I have 3 suggestions for the USPS:

1. Snail Mail Spam folder – For a Fee:  This might get a little tricky and touchy, but I think there might be something to this.  I can usually tell very quickly what mail is junk.  I realize that the sender of Junk Mail is a large spender in the eyes of the USPS.  However, the data on who was using the Spam folder on the recipient end can remain a mystery.  It is likely that the same individuals that actually accept the offers presented to them in the junk mail are likely the same customers that would NOT elect to purchase the Spam folder option.

There are 142 million delivery points in the US.  If 50% of those paid $1 per month for this service that would be almost $1 billion in revenue.  I’m not sure what the costs associated would actually be but I would imagine that we could find at least 50% margins here.

2. Vehicle ads – The USPS has the largest civilian fleet of vehicles in the world – 218,684 total vehicles.  Why nothe  put ads on these trucks?  They could put their own ads which would mean they probably wouldn’t have to spend so much money on TV ads with those “Flat Rate Postage Guy” Commercials.  Or they could put ads for other companies.  There are about 500,000 billboards in the US.  If the USPS added its vehicles to the mix, that number would almost increase 50%.

Have you driven past the semi trucks that carry mail between distribution centers on our interstates (exactly the same interstates that have billboards littered throughout)?  They are completely blank – white canvases, roughly the size of a full size billboard.  Even the local delivery trucks travel the roads of every street in America – everyday.

3. Joint retail operations – similar to UPS Store or Fedex Office – The USPS operate 36,400 retail post offices.  By comparison, Wal-Mart has 8500 stores in 15 countries.  Also, there are about 32,000 McDonald’s worldwide. Fedex Office operates roughly 1800 centers on 3 continents, while there are about 4300 UPS Stores worldwide.  Just by looking at the numbers of retail outlets, it is impossible not to see the opportunity that the USPS has with its brick and mortar footprint.

Making its retail post offices a source of further profit will start with cleaning up its customer service.  Everyone has had a bad customer service experience at the Post Office.  Ironically, the USPS employee that is most often the greatest steward of customer service is the guy who delivers the mail – while riding around in a truck or walking past barking dogs by him or herself all day.  Maybe the post office should make the grumpy retail office workers deliver mail while the letter carriers work in the retail branches.

I don’t have the best product and service mix figured out for the USPS, but I do know that they should be getting a lot more value out of their retail footprint.  Selling stamps, a few branded packaging supplies, and PO Box access is not going to cut it in a world that demands ever changing and ever improving look and function.

Reprinted from the personal blog of CEO – Chris Bingham.

Talk to anyone in the Raleigh area and you’ll hear that the place to work is SAS. Well, word got out a few years back and in 2010 & 2011 SAS was named FORTUNE Magazine’s Best Place to Work – in the entire United States.

SAS is a privately held software company headquartered in Cary, NC with $2.3 billion in revenue and about 12,000 employees. Two of North Carolina’s 5 billionaires are the 2 primary founders of SAS – Jim Goodnight and John Sall.

My vision for Riley Life is to become “The SAS of Logistics” as the place to work. It has long been my belief that if you make employees your focus, you will succeed. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of customers in ways that you can’t imagine. This philosophy is obviously not new – SAS has perfected it.

I’m setting the vision for Riley Life high – I want to be the best possible place and company to work for.

You can talk to people or read articles on the innovative things SAS is doing to take care of their employees. However, in order to better understand what living into this vision truly means, Riley Life’s key personnel visited SAS today for a “behind the scenes Culture Tour.”

Wow – we were really treated like royalty. An enormous thank you goes to Jacquelyn Warner for arranging our day and experience at SAS. Lisa Buckner, Director of HR Programs, gave us a company culture overview at the new Executive Briefing Center. She touched on why she joined SAS and why she’s stayed there 25 years. For the friend that courted her to SAS, it was being made to “feel important” and that managers “ask her opinion and actually listen.” Today, SAS is built on Trust, Flexibility and Values. Those values are: Approachable, Customer Driven, Swift & Agile, Innovative, and Trustworthy. The management philosophy is guided by: Mutual Respect, Empowerment, Results Driven and Valuing Life Outside of SAS.

After the fantastic overview, we took a campus tour. Highlights included the solar farm, onsite fitness center, and back to the Executive Briefing Center for lunch. During lunch, we were joined by Stacy Hobson, Director of Customer Loyalty and Retention. While dining on sushi, we discussed SAS’s approach to customer value creation, improving the customer experience, ultimately how they are working to more closely align themselves with their customers. Amazingly and quite self-aware, SAS has admittedly not been good about staying in better touch with their customers. Stacy’s group is new and working on new ways to better analyze, engage, and empower customers of SAS products.

We left inspired and overwhelmed by our vision. We have clarity, focus, knowledge and have seen what our vision actually looks like. SAS just turned 35 years old. Riley Life is 3.5 years old. Let me know if you are interested in being a part of our success.

I will share further details for our vision and our emphasis on implementation of the vision in future updates.