Literature Fulfillment Services, Kitted and Shipped In-House
Print, store, kit, and ship from one building. One partner is accountable from the press to your store’s back door.
Printing since 1928
Employee-owned since 2016
Print and fulfillment under one roof in Fenton, MO
More than 65 staff
Your Materials Are Somewhere Else
The print comes from one vendor. The warehouse is another company across town. And you are the integration between them.
Reorders happen by email. Nobody can tell you what is actually on the shelf without someone walking out to look. A store opens its kit and one insert is missing, so now you are shipping a single envelope overnight to fix a $2 problem. Six weeks later you reprint 5,000 brochures because no one knew the shelf was empty, and the 5,000 from the last run are still sitting on a pallet.
None of that is a printing problem. It is what literature fulfillment services are for, and it is usually being handled by someone whose actual job is something else.
What Literature Fulfillment Means at Garlich
Literature fulfillment is the storage, assembly, and shipment of printed materials after they come off the press. It covers holding inventory, building kits, and sending orders out to the people and locations that request them.
At Garlich, the material is stored and shipped from the same building where it was printed. Inventory sits in 10,000 square feet of climate-controlled storage, a short walk from the presses that ran the job. There is no handoff between a printer and a warehouse, no freight leg in the middle, and no argument about which vendor caused a delay. When a kit ships short, the person who can fix it is already in the building.
We did not add fulfillment to sell a second service. We added it because the print was arriving on time and the program was still failing after it left.
What Literature Fulfillment Means at Garlich
Included
- Storage of printed materials, promotional products, and collateral, including material we did not print
- Kitting and assembly, automated and by hand depending on the job
- Serialized and variable-data kitting, where every kit is slightly different
- Barcode and checklist verification before a box closes
- Pick, pack, and ship on individual and bulk orders
- Direct-to-consumer order fulfillment
- Returns processing
- Live inventory counts and automated low-stock alerts
- Reordering through the same portal you use to order print
- Carrier management and shipment tracking
- Direct mail fulfillment, including sorting and addressing
- Multi-location distribution for franchise, dealer, and retail networks
Not Included
- Refrigerated or hazardous material storage
- Customs brokerage and duties handling
- Routine worldwide distribution
Two exclusions are worth stating plainly, because they save a discovery call. We do not store refrigerated or hazardous material, and we do not handle customs brokerage or duties. Shipping is domestic by default. International shipments get arranged when a program occasionally needs one, but a program built primarily on international distribution is not what this operation is set up to run.
What You Get
One partner who owns the outcome
When print and fulfillment sit with the same company, there is nobody to escalate to and nobody to blame. The accountability is not split, so neither is the fix.
Fewer reprints
Most over-ordering is an information problem. You can see live counts on every item you have with us, and you get an alert before a line runs out, so you order what you need instead of what feels safe.
Kits that are actually complete
Every box is verified against a checklist before it closes, so a missing insert gets caught in Fenton rather than at a store 900 miles away.
Reorders that do not require you
Regional managers request what they need through the portal, against approved materials and against live stock. You stop being the routing layer for other people’s print requests.
How It Works
1. Program Setup
We map what you are storing, how it gets requested, who is allowed to request it, and where it ships. Turnaround expectations get set here too, in writing. From you: your SKU list, your approval rules, and your shipping destinations.
2. Print
The job runs on our presses in Fenton. From you: approved files, or let our prepress team prepare them.
3. Receive and Shelve
Finished material is logged into inventory and put away in a known location, not stacked in a corner. Material you did not print with us gets received the same way.
4. Kit and Verify
Components are assembled to spec, automated where volume allows and by hand where presentation matters. Serialized and variable-data kits are built to the same process. Every kit is verified before the box closes.
5. Ship and Report
Orders go out with tracking, and you get delivery reporting by location.
How Fast an Order Ships
Turnaround depends on the order, not on a published standard, and we would rather tell you that than quote you a number we cannot hold for every job.
Some orders ship the same day we receive them, when they arrive before that day’s cutoff and the work allows it. A straight replenishment, where stock comes off the shelf and goes into a box, moves faster than a kit that has to be assembled first. A complex kit with many components takes longer than a simple one.
What you get instead of a blanket promise is a committed ship date: one agreed when your program is set up, and confirmed again on any order that falls outside it. If a date is not achievable, you hear it when you place the order rather than on the day the material was supposed to arrive.
Where We Ship
We ship nationwide from Fenton, Missouri, which puts most of the continental United States within two ground days. Multi-location programs go out coordinated, so every store or office receives its materials on the same schedule rather than trickling in over a week.
Scale is not the constraint. We run distribution programs reaching more than 1,000 locations, and multi-location work of that size is routine rather than exceptional here.
2 days
Ground shipping reaches most of the continental United States within two days from Fenton, MO.
1,000+
Locations reached in distribution programs we run today — multi-location work at that scale is routine here, not exceptional.
Is This Right for You?
Likely a good fit if
- You run an ongoing print program rather than one-off jobs
- You ship to multiple locations: stores, offices, dealers, or chapters
- Your materials are assembled into kits or packets
- You are currently coordinating a printer and a warehouse separately
- You reprint material you suspect you already have
- You need someone to store and ship material another printer produced
Probably not a fit if
- Your material needs refrigeration, or is classified as hazardous
- Your program runs primarily international and needs customs clearance and duties handled
What It Costs
Fulfillment is quoted, not priced from a rate card, because two programs with the same box count can differ by a factor of three in handling.
Four things drive the number:
- How many distinct items you are storing
- How complex each kit is to assemble
- How long material sits before it ships
- How many shipments go out, and how often
There is no minimum program size. If you have one item on a shelf and ship it twice a year, that is a program we will quote.
Common Questions Before Getting Started
How fast can you turn a project around and get it shipped?
It depends on the job, which is the honest answer and also the reason we commit to a date per order rather than publishing a standard. Same-day shipping happens on orders received before cutoff when the work allows it. Replenishment moves faster than kitting. You get a ship date at setup and a confirmed date on anything outside it.
Will you store material you did not print?
Yes. Material from another printer gets received, logged, and shipped the same way as material that came off our presses.
How small is too small?
There is no minimum. Small programs are quoted the same way large ones are, on items stored, kit complexity, dwell time, and shipment volume.
Can you take over a program that is already running somewhere else?
Yes. Because we store and fulfill material we did not print, an existing program can move here without reprinting inventory you already own.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is literature fulfillment?
Literature fulfillment is the storage, assembly, and shipment of printed materials after production. It includes holding inventory, building kits, and shipping orders to the locations that request them.
What is the difference between fulfillment and kitting?
Kitting is one part of fulfillment. Kitting is assembling multiple components into a single package. Fulfillment covers the whole cycle: storage, kitting, picking, packing, shipping, and reporting.
Do you store materials you did not print?
Yes. We store and fulfill material produced elsewhere, so a program can transfer to us without a reprint.
How quickly can an order ship?
Same-day is possible on orders received before cutoff, depending on the job. Replenishment orders ship faster than kitted orders. Rather than publish one turnaround for everything, we commit to a ship date for your program and confirm it on each order.
Can our regional teams order their own materials?
Yes. Ordering runs through the same portal you use for print, where each team sees only the materials approved for them and orders against live inventory.
Do you ship to individual consumers?
Yes. Direct-to-consumer orders are picked, packed, and shipped from the same operation, and returns are processed here as well.
How is this priced?
Fulfillment is quoted per program. The main variables are how many items you store, how complex your kits are, how long material is held, and how often shipments go out. There is no minimum program size.
Where do you ship?
Nationwide from Fenton, Missouri. International shipments are arranged occasionally when a program requires one, but we do not handle customs brokerage or duties.
Let’s Talk About Your Program
Tell us what you are storing, how it gets requested, and where it needs to go. We will tell you what it takes to run your literature fulfillment program, and what it costs.
Employee-owned and printing in St. Louis since 1928.
