FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)

What channels does Distribution Alternatives support?

Distribution Alternatives partners with its clients to develop and implement supply chain solutions to accurately distribute products to their customers. We support numerous clients in all areas of marketing, including DRTV, catalogs, home shopping channels, retail, e-commerce and literature fulfillment.

How long does it take to get my products set up for distribution in your facilities?

The timeline of your program into our systems and facilities can vary. Much of the implementation depends on the sophistication of your current operations and systems and what services are required of Distribution Alternatives. We have done it in as little as a week but usually the process will take 6-8 weeks.

What type of facilities does Distribution Alternatives have? Where are they located?

Distribution Alternatives, Inc. operates out of 1.5 million sq. ft. in four facilities located in Minnesota and southern California.

Can Distribution Alternatives provide remote access to our inventory?

We have made available to our clients 24-hour access to on-line report packages. The data is refreshed 6 times per day, and the reports can be configured to your specific needs by sorting/filtering fields by time and parameter.

What type of reports do you offer? Can I get them in formats that I can manipulate myself?

Distribution Alternatives has extensive experience in providing standard and ad-hoc reporting to our clients. We have numerous standard reports that have been developed to meet the needs of many clients while additional reports are developed in cooperation with our client partners. Reports such as Order Inquiry, Stock Status, Open Orders, Ship Detail and others are available for download into various spreadsheet formats.

Which order management systems does Distribution Alternatives use?

Distribution Alternatives runs on an IBM iSeries server which provides back end processing support for order processing, EDI, warehouse management systems and our DB2 database. A group of Dell servers provides internet client access.

Which inventory management system do you use?

Our inventory management system is proprietary and a integral part of our WMS and client reporting tools.