KICKER Customer Story

Kicker started out with Stillwater Designs, and I was playing in a rock and roll band and made speakers as a hobby. I was approached by a friend to build a speaker for a pickup truck. I did that and that became very popular and we developed that through the eighties and it grew really rapidly. Today we have six hundred and some different products that we sell all over the US, internationally. Early on when I took the director of distribution role, I had some challenges in front of me. At a certain point, management came to me and asked me to investigate alternative warehousing. You know, Averitt has solutions for that. Kicker used us for LTL, and when we opened the door to a broader conversation with Kicker speakers, we took a look at where their big customers were. They were bringing most of their goods to the eastern two thirds of the United States. We have a lot of our big customers out there. It only makes sense to shorten the distance to decrease our our transit time. So what we took a look at for them was how can we cut miles out of their supply chain. We took a hard look at Charleston, South Carolina. All of the ports that they were sourcing from in the Pacific Rim, they were could very easily bring those goods into Charleston just as easily as they could LA Long Beach and ultimately Stillwater. So we sold them a little bit of warehouse space in Charleston. We're doing the drayage of the container from the ocean port to our facility. We're storing those materials for them in Charleston and doing LTL and small package fulfillment out of our Charleston facility. The end result with saving the money on the transportation, it also allowed them to be a day faster on their service to get it to their customers. And that was a big win for Kicker. I think we're winning. I really do. That's the feedback we're getting in the field. It's changing their order patterns because it's getting to them sooner. It's showing up without damage. It's on time. They've got great relationships with their drivers. In a nutshell, I think it's really working out well for everybody and we're just happy it's going this direction. Most customers know us as an LTL services provider, but we're very good at these other things that are not LTL. We have an outstanding truckload product, an outstanding expedited product. As a freight forwarder, we have outstanding specialists that can help get goods from overseas. You're going from Oklahoma to New Jersey or Miami, there's delays and, you know, everyone's been able to turn that into a couple day run. Our customers in turn are happier with it. It's a solution all the way around. We are the power of one. The cultural similarities between Averitt and Kicker like you could sit there and switch shirts from one person to the other. It didn't take too long to realize how special Kicker was and what their culture is and how similar that is to our organization. We want to partner with people that have that same service mindset. People that that are interested in continuous improvement and working together and partnering, I think are super important to us. You know, Averitt's just a phone call away. I deal with a lot of problems, so it helps to have partners in place to assist with those problems. It certainly makes my job and life a lot better.