Badger Liquor Warehousing Success Story
Wisconsin’s Largest Alcohol Distributor Manages Its Warehouses With BrandMuscle’s Inventory Solution
Challenge
Since the Sadoff family started Badger Liquor in 1935, the company has grown into Wisconsin’s largest and most respected wholesale beverage-alcohol distributor. With three large warehouses covering the state, Badger Liquor keeps an enormous inventory of promotional materials to support sales for the on- and off-premise accounts that they work with. After using BrandMuscle’s solutions to streamline their print production in 2017, they came to BrandMuscle for help managing their POS (point of sale) inventory.
Massive warehouses are maze-like spaces. Rows and racks stretch in every direction. Wine and liquor suppliers send pallets of products, branded promotional items, marketing assets, and signage, and the volume can be overwhelming. Some materials just show up on the shipping docks and require operations managers to sift through the boxes, identify the items, and catalog them to make them available to sales reps. Items easily get pushed to the backs of warehouses, and when marketing assets are not utilized, sales opportunities get missed. It is expensive to house materials that aren’t being used, and keeping an accurate inventory is an ongoing challenge. Some sales reps request promotional items through email and phone—even with paper sticky notes. Some reps pull items from racks without logging quantities or notifying the warehouse manager. From an inventory and control standpoint, operations need visibility and control.
Solution
BrandMuscles’ POS Warehouse provides a single-source solution for warehouse managers to automate inventory, distribution, and tracking, improve planning, management, and utilization. Badger Liquor can now easily track and manage inventory and identify where each item is stored within the warehouse when new POS items arrive. Unlike Badger Liquor’s previous system, BrandMuscle tags with items and images so sales reps can see pictures of what’s available, easily place orders, and BrandMuscles’ ingestion of Badger Liquors' data lets them know what account each item goes to and which rep ordered it. Detailed reports break down orders by category, including supplier, brand, item type. Reports keep Badger Liquors’ supplier partners informed about inventory, and allow Badger Liquor to put approvals on certain items.
Results
Timestamping lets warehouse managers see when every item went into the system, in what quantity, how many remain, and see which items moved and which did not. Transparency saves Badger Liquor money on storage and eliminates waste by enabling proactive conversations with suppliers about any aging or slow-moving items in their supplier portfolio, and enables informed decisions about future orders. Numerous controls empower warehouse managers to make data-driven decisions, such as putting limited or seasonal items on hold, only allowing orders during designated dates.
BrandMuscle launched the solution at Badger Liquor South in 2018 and soon after expanded to other markets due to success of the program.
“Initially, the team was apprehensive about change, but after training everyone on BrandMuscle, they love it. The success of the program in our South Warehouse made it easy to scale companywide. Our managers and suppliers leverage the reports to determine how POS items are performing. Visibility into what POS is in stock, and having pictures of each item, really help the sales force present our programs to customers.”
John Heinan, Badger Liquor Operations Manager/POS Coordinator
