Mailstream USA Inc. was a direct-mail marketing company that dabbled in the fulfillment business until one day four years ago when a Spokane man let his fingers do the walking.


At that time, says company CEO Allan McEachern, Mailstream was the only name under Fulfillment in the Yellow Pages. Consequently, the companys name was the only one a Spokane man saw when his daughter called from Florida asking for help. She worked for a marketing arm of Pepsi-Cola and was seeking her dads help in finding a fulfillment company here to distribute promotional products to radio stations throughout the Northwest.


Mailstream landed that job, then several others for Pepsi. Soon thereafter, it attracted additional fulfillment clients. Now, McEachern says, fulfillment work accounts for more than half of the companys revenue and is growing rapidly.


The term fulfillment is used to describe a broad range of services through which a company handles distribution on behalf of another company. One common function of the fulfillment industry is to handle promotional contests and random drawings, for which the fulfillment company accepts contest entries, handles the drawing, and sends winnings to the lucky participants.


Mailstream does some of that, but now, McEachern says, Weve taken fulfillment to the next step. Were bringing in products, warehousing them, processing orders, and shipping them out.


As a distributor, Mailstream ships an average of 75 packages a day with a total weight of about 1,200 pounds and holding about $10,000 in merchandise in all.


UPS comes twice a day now, McEachern says. Were becoming a popular customer for them.


In addition to shipping packages, the company has begun shipping products by the pallet for its biggest fulfillment customer, Santa Barbara, Calif.-based toy maker Noodle Head Inc., McEachern says. He says Mailstream has sent out as many as eight pallets in a day to toy distributors and retailers that carry Noodle Heads goods.


A pallet of Noodle Heads products, which range from Travel Buddy animal pillows to Chinese kite kits, typically holds 40 to 50 cases of toys.


With retailers ramping up for the Christmas shopping season, Mailstream has been receiving Noodle Head products from overseas manufacturers by the cargo-container loada cargo container holds more than 30 pallets of merchandiseand is shipping them out to retailers quickly. McEachern says inventory doesnt sit in storage at Mailstream for any longer than 30 days right now.


Chris Ryan, Noodle Heads vice president, who operates a sales office for the company in Spokane Valley, says it outsourced its distribution operations to Mailstream initially because as a startup, the toy maker wanted to keep its full-time staff small.


Now, Ryan says, Using Mailstream allows me to focus on sales and marketing. Id like to continue to be able to focus on growing the business.


McEachern says Mailstream recently inked a distribution contract with Eckhart Teachings Inc., a Vancouver, British Columbia-based company that produces compact discs, DVDs, and books by inspirational speaker Eckhart Tolle. Through that contract, Mailstream will handle all of that companys Internet saleskeeping products in inventory, then shipping them to customers once theyre ordered.


We see a real opportunity with companies in Canada working in e-commerce, McEachern says. With Canada, if you ship out, its very expensive, especially if you ship into the U.S.


With new business and volume growth from established customers, McEachern says Mailstreams sales have grown by 20 percent annually for the last three years, though he declines to disclose annual revenues.


The company currently employs seven people and operates out of an 8,000-square-foot space at 1620 E. Houston, on Spokanes North Side.


The company nearly has outgrown its current space, however, and is looking at additional space on the West Plains, near Spokane International Airport andmore importantly for the mailing side of the companynear the U.S. Postal Service distribution center, at the Spokane International Airport Business Park. He says, however, that Mailstream hasnt committed to take any additional space at this time.


The company provides other types of fulfillment services for various companies.


For example, it stocks marketing materials and other corporate literature for Redmond, Wash.-based management-consultant Secor International Inc. and ships materials to that companys 44 offices when theyre needed.


Also, Mailstream still works extensively for Pepsi, handling contests and redemption offers for the company, and handles some similar work for the NBAs Sacramento Kings, for which Pepsi is a major sponsor.


Mail side grows, too


While the fulfillment business is growing quickly, McEachern says the concerns mailing business continues to grow at a healthy clip as well. On that end of the business, he has begun to handle more one-to-one marketing, through which direct mail is targeted to an existing customer and includes information specific to that customer.


For example, if someone buys a Canon printer, a couple of days later Canon might send that person an advertisement through the mail that has the consumers name on it and provides tips for maintaining the new printer. Also, the flier will include coupons for related items, such as toner and printer paper.


McEachern started Mailstream in 1990 as a consulting business, at the request of the U.S. Postal Service. The Postal Service had started a work-share program in the late 1980s through which mass mailers could mail at lower postal rates if they used the Postal Services bar-code system on the of correspondence they sent out.


At that time, McEachern worked at Ambassadors Group Inc., the Spokane-based provider of education-travel services, and worked in Ambassadors direct-mail marketing operations. He learned how to use the Postal Services bar-code system and implemented it at Ambassadors quickly. Few other businesses here were using it at that time, McEachern says, and the Postal Service asked him if he would show other companies how to implement the system.


He operated Mailstream out of his home at first while continuing to work at Ambassadors. Within three years, however, he began handling mailing for some customers for whom he had consulted, and he moved Mailstream into a small warehouse space on the North Side.


McEachern continued to work at Ambassadors Group until 2002, when he left to oversee Mailstream full time.