Once again, the largest multicultural and ethnic distributor in the world, plans to expand their distribution network in St. Louis, Missouri. This makes it their 11th distribution center which will now make their total warehouse square footage a whopping 1.46 million square feet in America.
The biggest difference with this new location is that this distribution center will be called ‘Jinny Regional St. Louis’. What is Jinny Regional? Mr. Charles Seo, CFO of Jinny United says, “We have learned and been advised by our operation managers in our Memphis and Detroit branches that it is not always beneficial for our smaller market warehouses to have Jinny Corp. inventory at 94% like we are used to. It is not cost effective to maintain this standard and this was causing smaller branches to grow at a slower rate than what we expected.”
Jinny Regional St. Louis’ new mission statement will be designed to carry only the best of the A and B products from each brand. These items are defined by Jinny’s massive in-house data bank in combination with IRI report analyses.
Mr. Jack Park, Operations Director, adds, “With our current system, we can setup our new warehouse from start to finish within 25 business days with a variance of 3 days; but now, with the new format of Jinny Regional, we can maximize our efficiency which allows us to cut out almost 7 business days and is almost 28% faster than our current system. Over time, we will be much more efficient in opening our Jinny Regionals down the road.”
So when will Jinny Regional St. Louis be open to customers? Mr. Devin Ok, Co-Operations Director says, “We will receive our keys to the building on Monday, August 3rd and we will be open on August 24th.” The total size of this building is 48,000 square feet with a 24 foot clear ceiling.
OTC Beauty Magazine asks, “What is the purpose of opening more distribution centers for Jinny United? Do you plan to open more?” Mr. Andrew Yoo, Sales Director of Jinny Corp. states, “We feel that our company brings a series of value to our OTC stores when we are closer to them rather than further away. We believe our OTC stores can rely upon Jinny as their true distribution partner and we can learn more about the owners and their business in order to service them better. I don’t know if we will open more Jinny Regionals, but if this new concept works, we will open more as we have with our ‘JBS Cash & Carry’ concept which we introduced to the industry back in 2000.”
Leading the St. Louis Regional branch will be Mr. Ki Nam Kim. He will be moving his family from Los Angeles, and with 18 years with Jinny Corporation he has enough experience and knows the company’s core philosophy inside and out. Eddie Jhin stated, “Under Mr. Kim’s leadership and his role for the company, I am very confident that he will serve our customers in the market very well and he will make our first Regional branch a top notch distributor in the St. Louis market.”
Mr. Eddie Jhin, the top manager of Jinny United, says, “What pleases me the most is that the idea of Jinny Regional and opening in the St. Louis market came from my employees and this is exactly why I am so proud to lead this group of people.”
“OTC stores are an intricate part of our company. Our mission is to grow our OTC stores in every single city and region, and if this mission is accomplished, I think we have done our job. Jinny needs our OTC stores to believe that we want them to succeed and hopefully they will appreciate the fact that we are their biggest defender of this industry. We are here to serve and learn from you, but you must try and try again to be better in order for all of us to grow.”
“We hope that our OTC stores in St. Louis and Kansas will welcome our company and we will do our best to support your needs. Thank you all!”