Agile Business Navigator

Sometimes, business agility involves the ability to recognize when to throw in the towel.

A few months ago, a new face appeared on the blogging horizon. The owner of iFulfill.com, Paul Perdue, was blogging. He talked about how he balanced building a business and family life. His entries were frequently about how he planned to spark up fulfillment and inject much needed technological advances into the industry.

Then the dreaded email came from Paul. He was closing the business. His blog has turned into a place for him to discuss what happens next as he closes up the doors. Its also a place for people to vent and complain and threaten to sue Paul.

Paul made a choice, probably not the best choice, but nonetheless, a choice. He elected to close up without a 30 day notice. At the same time, he's been very honest about attempting to reunite all the products he holds in his warehouse with their owners and cooperate in any way with fulillment houses that want to assist in the effort.

He's been very human in his effort to do everything he can to make it right for his clients. I'm sure those of you that have inventory with him and are unhappy can take the time to be human as well.

Perhaps you wouldn't have quit. Or if you did quit, you would have done it differently. Its easy to be someone other then the decision maker and say you would have made a better decision. Its harder to take the time to understand that the decision was made with the best information available at the time. Instead of telling Paul what he should have done, why not offer what he should do next?

In the wake of the iFulfill.com closure, I'm helping some of my clients pull their inventory from iFulfill and transfer it to other fulfillment companies. Remaining calm is the first step. Identifying what you want to do with your immediate inventory is second. Next is determining how you want to ship your products to your existing customers with outstanding orders. Last, identify your longer term shipping and fulfillment needs.

So far, the fulfillment houses involved seem to be efulfillmentservice.com, ironlinx.com, dart-logistics.com. Sandy Griffin, wrapnship.com is also assisting those who just want to get their inventory out of iFulfill. She also offers shipping services that may work for smaller companies.

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