Send The Light Distribution (STL) has moved its warehouse in Elizabethton, Tennessee, to a new location in Bristol, Tennessee. STL transferred all content from the old warehouse to the new one Memorial Day weekend. The move required 205 tractor-trailer loads of 1.25 million units (65,000 SKUs) plus shelving, as well as additional truckloads of office furniture, records and IT equipment.

Company President Glenn Bailey said STL had a good reason to make the move.

"The lease on our warehouse in Elizabethton, Tennessee, expired," Bailey said. "A national logistics company came in and was willing to pay 65 percent more than we could to buy the building. Most companies have faced this kind of a challenge at some point. The difference is that we strive to meet this challenge over a long weekend with a minimal delay in customer shipments.”

“Racing to Bristol,” the theme for the move which was emblazoned on employees’ T-shirts, served to motivate them to push toward the finish line. The theme was appropriate as the new warehouse is just down the road from NASCAR’s famed Bristol Motor Speedway.

The move went on 24 hours a day for a total of 90 hours starting Friday afternoon and going nonstop through Tuesday morning. Labor was supplied by STL staff plus church groups, family and friends. Five church groups participated with a total of 100 volunteers raising tens of thousands of dollars for their churches and youth groups. Volunteers were kept energized by meals catered by employees. 

On Sunday morning, Vice President of Information Technology Andrew Clyde led devotions, reading from Acts 16, an account of how Paul and Silas overcame adversity, which was something the movers felt they could identify with. The movers didn’t get imprisoned, but faced adversity from truckloads of shelving that collapsed while being transported, new fire alarms that incorrectly sensed problems and near-crashes that left vehicle contents in a tangled mess. The result of these events was that too much product wasn’t where it was expected to be. Of 65,000 actively stocked SKUs, 85 percent were exactly located during the Memorial Day weekend, and for the last eight shipping days, employees have chipped away at the remaining miscues, which now number less than 300.

“We had no choice but to move, but we apologize to all our customers that briefly experienced lesser service than they normally get from us," said Mark Phillips, vice president of sales and marketing. "We are not satisfied until every item is precisely located and every order is shipped as expected by our customers.”

STL purchases from over 500 vendors and ships to more than 10,000 locations with more than 90 percent of the orders shipping the same day and arriving in one, two or three days.

"Our primary customers are bricks-and-mortar retailers in North America, but we also send scores of containers of discount Bibles and books overseas through our Great Value Books division," Bailey said. "Our fastest-growing customers use the Internet as an additional showroom and our warehouse as their backroom."

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