If a packaging plant was in need of box sealer and wanted a certain model – say a 3M-Matic Model 700RKS – all they would have to do is search the Web and they could probably find a used one. And there is a good chance it would be from Yankee Supply Company, an industrial warehouse equipment supplier that last week had 10 of them in stock on its Web site.
It is not by accident that the Johnston company usually plants itself near the top of the list of Web search results, Vice President Tom “J.R.” Harper Jr. said last week.
“Thankfully, we got in early and worked with a really good webmaster,” he said. Much of his business comes off Google, “because we generally come up in the Top 10 results.”
Since the company went online 13 years ago, its business has slowly shifted away from the Rhode Island market.
The company got its start in President and founder Tom Harper Sr.’s basement, moved to his garage and for the past 16 years has been on Hartford Avenue in Johnston. The company operates a 2-acre property with a 50,000-square-foot warehouse.
“There used to be a lot more business and opportunity in Rhode Island,” General Manager Steve Ciampanelli said. “Picture it back in the day when all the mills were alive and in the Jewelry District.”
Now, Rhode Island business accounts for about 20 percent of the company’s business and there are still about 10 walk-ins a day at the warehouse. Another 20 percent of the overall business comes from the other New England states. The majority of shipments that leave Rhode Island do not cross the Mississippi River, Harper Jr. said.
“After that, freight becomes expensive,” Harper said, “and a lot of companies start looking more in their own area for the material.”
There is, though, the occasional exception. Harper recently shipped a mezzanine platform to Arizona. “I was surprised, they paid $2,400 in freight,” he said. “He still bought the mezzanine from us because it was cheaper, I guess.”
Harper said Yankee Supply attempts to cut in half the price of used equipment that comes through the warehouse. Even with added freight charges, buying from Yankee should still be a deal for most customers, he added. There is a trade-off, however, because for much of the used equipment Harper does not offer a warrantee.
And the used equipment comes from all over the country. Ciampanelli said many of the warehouses that it comes from are found through word of mouth. Others are found through advertisements and Internet auctions.
When a 150,000-square-foot Discovery Channel warehouse in Ohio closed recently, Yankee Supply won a bid for the contents. Taking down the equipment – miles of conveyor, hundreds of sections of pallet racking, cardboard balers and everything else – took about two months.
For jobs like that, Harper said he usually hires an independent firm to do the onsite work and has the equipment shipped back to Rhode Island. Ciampanelli added that if it can be sold onsite, it usually is.
Not all of the equipment that gets sold at Yankee is used, though. Some of it is equipment that was damaged during shipping. Of those items that were originally refused by the person who ordered them, fireproof cabinets seem to be one of the most common.
“The manufacturer collects a truckload of these and, because they’re factory seconds, or not good enough for quality that they want to send out, and when they have a truckload they send them to us,” Harper said. He then sells them for about 50 percent of what they would have sold for new.
The Johnston warehouse is literally overflowing with different products – a fourth aisle was created outside. And the company owns a six-acre parcel in East Greenwich that it could someday build another warehouse on. That would be after the current building is paid for, by about 2011, Harper said.
Shelving could run from $40 for a wooden or metal shelve to a 16-foot-tall, $1,200 double-sided cantilever rack. Hand trucks run about $55.
And Yankee does stock new shelving, racks and other material. Locally, in Rhode Island, Connecticut and Massachusetts, the company does personal installations, as it was preparing to do last week for John F. Allen Company, a bead supplier in Warwick.
In this business, things can go quickly, barely touching the warehouse floor. But other items – like a $3,000 machine that could be used to load a truck without wooden pallets – can be in stock for years. And that helps explain the slogan: “If it’s not stocked in our warehouse, it doesn’t mean we don’t have it.” •
COMPANY PROFILE
YANKEE SUPPLY COMPANY
OWNER: Tom Harper Sr.
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Warehouse
equipment supply
LOCATION: 2140 Hartford Ave., Johnston
EMPLOYEES: 25
YEAR ESTABLISHED: 1976
ANNUAL SALES: WND
