Purolator USA sets up shop in North Carolina

Jeff Berman, Senior Editor -- Logistics Management, 3/10/2008

RALEIGH, N.C.—Purolator USA, a small package and freight forwarding subsidiary of Canada-based courier Purolator, recently announced it has opened a southeastern processing facility in Morrisville, North Carolina.

The company said in a statement that this 8,000 square-foot location will provide service for shippers delivering regularly to Canada and within the U.S. from North Carolina and South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. It added that this location, which it describes as a fully-functional distribution center, is in close proximity to the Raleigh-Durham airport. And Purolator said it offers shippers “on-the-spot consolidation services, which result in reduced delivery times, which it said is advantageous compared to competitors that divert goods hundreds of miles away to be consolidated.

Tammy Fairbanks, Purolator USA Raleigh branch manager, told LM there were multiple reasons behind the decision to open this facility. She added that this facility has been part of the company’s plans since May 2007.

“The southeastern U.S. is one of the fastest growing regions of our country, with a population increase of more than one million people over the past six years,” said Fairbanks. “That population growth has fueled a dramatic increase in economic activity, including a tremendous surge in business to Canada. In North Carolina alone, exports to Canada account for more than $4.4 billion annually in goods and services.

Since Purolator USA is widely recognized for its expertise in cross border US/Canada services, it made sense to locate a branch facility in this region.”

Along with on-site consolidation and reduced delivery times, the Purolator's Fairbanks said that having a regional hub in North Carolina creates a distribution center bypass, which could result in customers avoiding costly and time consuming distribution center stopovers.

Because the facility is brand new, she declined to disclose exactly how many customers it can serve, but she noted that the National Hockey League's Carolina Hurricanes is one customer serviced by the Raleigh facility, along with other customers in the cosmetic, manufacturing and specialty retail segments with Distribution Centers in the Raleigh-Durham market.

The facility currently employs a small start up staff, she added. And when it is fully

staffed, there will be as many as 25-30 employees working in various sales and warehouse functions.