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“They’re the easiest to work with.” – Ryan Moody, Vice President of Outside Sales, IPS Packaging & Automation
For more than 10 years, Versa Pak and IPS Packaging & Automation have maintained an “easy” relationship. Versa Pak and IPS Packaging & Automation are integrated on every level of the organization from sales to upper management. Keep reading to learn more about how our partnership works.
The Beginning of the Supplier-Distributor Relationship
Versa Pak is a supplier member of the Packaging Distributors of America, a national supplier-distributor network, which is how the relationship originally began.
“We speak owner to owner, we speak manager to manager and they also get out in the field with us on joint sales calls and attend our sales meetings to help train our salespeople,” said Ryan Moody, Vice President of Outside Sales at IPS Packaging & Automation. “It’s a very tight relationship from every level of our organization.”
“It’s all about alignment,” Moody added. “They really understand our culture, how we go to market and they accommodate us. It’s just a really great partnership all around.”
Creating an Easy Working Relationship
“They’re the easiest to work with,” Moody said, adding examples like:
• You get a quick reaction.
• It’s easy to get somebody on the phone.
• They always try.
“Versa Pak always treats every opportunity with respect, and they try to help us as best as they can,” he noted. “They’re very quick to provide quotes; their lead times are always reasonable.”
In the length of the relationship between the companies, there has never been a quality issue.
“That says a lot,” Moody said. “In the custom poly space that they operate in, there’s a lot of quality issues. We’ve had them with a lot of other suppliers, but we’ve never had them with Versa Pak.”
A Balance of Quality Price and Service
Moody said Versa Pak understands distribution and values it, which means a lot in the relationship.
“They understand that it gives them a wider reach, that we get more sales reps on their behalf and that we provide a value-added service to the end-user,” he said. “They know how to integrate with us.”
One of the ways that set Versa Pak apart from other distributors is the training they’ve offered to Moody’s team.
“They’ll travel in, and they’ll train our salespeople about not only their product but also the custom poly industry in general,” he said. “They will come in and basically give us free training. Some of their competitors will not do that … Versa Pak has been a great partner with us.”
Overcoming Customer Challenges Together
One example of how IPS Packaging & Automation and Versa Pak worked together for a solution on a customer issue is with a national-level business. The business needed the same product – a custom piece of polyethylene that stabilizes a pallet – to go to more than 30 locations.
“We were struggling to figure out how to do the logistics,” Moody said. “We have multiple warehouses that we own operate, but it was not enough to cover the whole country. Versa Pak allowed us to use their warehouse, and they stock a lot of the product there for us and ship it on our behalf. They’re working on our behalf in markets that we couldn’t reach.”
Another benefit in that situation is that the customer requires IPS Packaging & Automation to absorb freight. By Versa Pak assisting with warehousing in Ohio, that helped them reduce freight costs.
“We’re partnering together to service that account, and there’s a lot of trust to make that happen,” Moody said.
He also credited Versa Pak for working on solutions for customers to create new blends of resin or downgauging products while still maintaining the strength of the product. Moody gave the example of a customer who is fighting a price increase despite the industry’s inflation.
“Versa Pak is working with us to redesign the product to make it a little thinner and change the dimensions but hold the price for the customer,” he said. “The customer will get the same protection they’ve always gotten from the product, but we’ll help them avoid price increases.”
Flexibility for the Future of the Plastic and Packaging Industries
Sustainability is a trend in the industry, and that flexibility is important when it comes to meeting customers’ sustainability wants.
“Customers are looking for ways to buy products that have more recycled content, things that are recyclable or even biodegradable,” Moody noted. “They want to use plastic products that are thinner, that don’t require the heavy amounts of plastic that they used to.”
Like the previous customer example, the customer may want a more sustainable product – but they may not want to pay more for it.
“It comes down to, how do you help your customer hit those sustainability goals without costing more,” he said.
If you’re looking to partner with Versa Pak or learn more about our products, contact us by phone or by chat on our website.