Friday, May 23, 2008

WEBER DISTRIBUTION SIGNS THREE-YEAR CONTRACT

SANTA FE SPRINGS, California – May 23, 2008 – Weber Distribution, a
leading West Coast provider of dedicated warehousing and
transportation logistics for more than 84 years, announced today that
it has been awarded a three-year contract with Buxton, a manufacturer
of high-quality personal leather goods for more than 100 years, to
handle the storage, pick & pack and distribution of their product line
to retailers throughout the United States, including Staples and
Office Max.

Under the new contract, Weber performs a wide variety of 3PL-related
services for Buxton, including storage, distribution, order
processing, label generation, inventory control, and routing guide
compliance, as well as value-added services such as order fulfillment,
pick & pack, and re-work with ticketing and sub-styling.
Buxton’s products line includes a variety of brands including Buxton,
Dopp, Wenger, and several private label programs for major retailers.
Their wallets, travel kits, belts, business accessories, computer
cases, totes, and other personal accessories are all manufactured in
China and are stored and distributed at two of Weber’s Southern
California-based warehouses.

According to Joanne Berwald Vice President, Operations for Buxton, the
company decided its East Coast-based pick & pack distribution no
longer fit their business model. “We requested five 3PL's to quote on
the pick & pack piece of the business. Though we had much success with
Weber shipping our case pack business over the last two years, we felt
it was important that we did our due diligence in evaluating other
3PL's to ensure that we selected the provider that would not only be
able to do the job efficiently and correctly according to retailer
requirements, but also have the right business ethic, culture, and fit
with our company.”

“After evaluating all of the candidates, we were convinced that Weber
had the technology, expertise, and more importantly, the culture we
were looking for,” said Berwald. “Weber management assured us that the
transition would be seamless to the retailer, and that they would
provide us with the efficiencies and improved delivery to market that
we required.”

From Weber’s 180,000 square foot facility La Mirada, California
facility, Buxton’s products are stored and orders are routed and
picked by case or pallet for big box retailers including Staples and
Office Max. This location also transloads consolidated containers to
Weber’s 212,000 square foot facility in Rancho Cucamonga, California
for Buxton’s value-added service requirements, including routing of
orders, and picking & packing, in addition to packaging changes,
retail ticket changes, and building of assorted packs. A variety of
Buxton’s customers are serviced from this facility including Samsonite
stores, Gottschalks, Mervyns, Sears, JCPenney, Fred Meyer, and
Nordstrom, to name a few. Buxton maintains approximately 4,600 unique
SKU's and through Weber’s facilities they ship roughly 1250 orders per
week containing 2,500 cases or 87,500 units.

Both of Weber’s Southern California-based facilities provide inventory
control through regular cycle counts, order processing, label
creation, and ensuring retail compliance associated with each order
that is shipped. Weber’s comprehensive Retail Compliance program
manages all of the major retailers’ specific routing, shipping and
labeling requirements. At the heart of the compliance program is a
custom-designed internal web site that allows all of Weber’s
warehouses to quickly reference every major retailers’ most recent
routing and shipping requirements, without having to individually
review and interpret routing and vendor guides.

About Buxton
For more than 100 years, Buxton has manufactured innovative and
high-quality personal leather goods. Despite its long tradition of
innovation, much has changed since 1898 when Dana Buxton and his wife,
Julia, began selling their handmade leather fits and novelties to
tourist and bicyclist traveling on the scenic Mohawk Trail in Western
Massachusetts. In 1998, Buxton celebrated its centennial and began
offering a full line of personal leather goods to department and
specialty store chains throughout the United States. Buxton is still
located in Springfield, Massachusetts where it began and it is now a
global entity with foreign manufacturing operations and licensees in
Australia, Bolivia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Indonesia, New Zealand,
Singapore, and South Africa.

About Weber Distribution, LLC
Los Angeles-based Weber Distribution has been in business for more
than 84 years and is a leading West Coast provider of dedicated
warehousing and logistics, including nationwide transportation,
distribution, storage (ambient and temperature-controlled), cross
docking/pool distribution, transloading, order fulfillment, material
handling, supply chain management, real estate development, and
personnel staffing.

As an asset-based provider, Weber Distribution supplies both West
Coast and nationwide coverage through its dedicated fleet of more than
350 refrigerated and dry trailers, which are outfitted with “SkyBitz”
tracking technology. Weber operates 20 facilities with over 4.5
million square feet of warehousing space in the Western United States.
Each of its warehouses are strategically located adjacent to major
transportation, port, rail and hub points, including Los Angeles, Long
Beach, Oakland, and San Diego, as well as greater Las Vegas, Phoenix,
Portland and Seattle.

Weber specializes in serving four vertical markets: Retail and Import,
Food & Beverage (temperature-controlled and ambient), Chemical and
Paper and maintains strategic partnerships with many well-known and
respected companies such as PPG, Valspar, Chevron Phillips, Proctor
and Gamble, Kraft, General Mills, Cadbury Schweppes, Scholastic Books,
Hershey, Nestle, Coors, Ocean Spray, Welch's, Wal-Mart and Safeway.

To ensure accurate and timely information is available to its
customers, Weber has invested extensively in state-of-the-art WMS and
TMS technology, including web-based access for viewing critical data
such as real-time inventory, order status, delivery schedules, and
business analysis reports.