REXALL SUNDOWN EXPANDING SALES STAFF, AUTOMATING

RICHARD TURCSIK Additional reporting: CHRISTINA VEIDERS

BOCA RATON, Fla. -- Growth in business is prompting Rexall Sundown here to add to its sales force and seek ways to improve its efficiency through automation.

The vitamin marketer, which sells its products through Kmart, Drug Emporium, Dominick's, Publix and other retail and wholesale outlets across the country, expects to refine and expand its sales force later this summer.

"What we're in the process of doing is defining our coverage pattern," J. Kelly Michols, vice president of sales, operations and development at Rexall Sundown, told Brand Marketing.

"We're defining the tools that our sales managers have currently and need to have in the future. We're looking at data and hardware, like notebook computers with big time E-mail modem capabilities to send power point presentations through the air," Michols explained.

"We want our staff to be as automated as possible in the field, and we're in the process of defining and fine-tuning our current customer base and how we manage those customers today and in the future. We're plotting out strategies for going out and getting new customers," he said.

Sundown is contemplating having its sales reps manage accounts by either geographic or customer profiles, whichever is judged to be in the best interests of customer service and the business.

"We aren't going to be a company that pigeonholes ourselves in one type of alignment. We've always been a very customer-oriented company. We don't want to go away from that," Michols said.

"One of the things that our customers are most happy about is that Sundown is committed to their business in total, whether it's manufacturing, sales or marketing," he added.

In addition to its national and regional accounts, Rexall Sundown is in tests with Walgreens, Eckerd and Target in Florida, and is looking to expand its distribution with Kroger Co., Michols said.