Getting in line, online

South Florida CEO, July, 2004 by Barbara Perkins

Many South Florida shoppers will remember retailer Service Merchandise with its decidedly low-tech ordering system--pencil and paper--and its conveyer belt delivery system. The name is back, but the catalog showrooms are replaced now by an online storefront. Ray Zimmerman, son of the company's founders, and CEO Yuval Moed, the brain behind online florist flowerfarm.com, are re-launching the brand from its new home in Boca Raton. "We're providing the products that were similar to what the stores had before," namely jewelry, Moed says. "Amazon just started selling jewelry, which really gives legitimacy to buying jewelry online," Moed says. Service Merchandise will handle customer service and outsourced order fulfillment to third-party vendors. "We've designed an efficient operation here," he says. "In the future we may consider adding retail stores, but right now it's one thing at a time." Zimmerman bought the company name after it went bankrupt in 1999. Service Merchandise thrived during the 1970s but withered when big discounters such as Wal-Mart began aggressively expanding. At its peak, the company had 413 stores, 41,000 employees and annual revenue of $4 billion.

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