GREENWICH, Conn., Jan. 24, 2005 (PRIMEZONE) -- Blyth, Inc. (NYSE:BTH), a leading designer and marketer of home decor and home fragrance products, today announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, CBK Styles, Inc., launched an Internet-based sales force automation initiative. The software was internally designed and jointly developed with The Proven Method, an Atlanta, Georgia-based business solutions and IT development firm. CBK offers quality home decor products, gifts and accessories at competitive prices to more than 25,000 independent specialty retailers across North America.
"Blyth's capital spending strategy is now focused on state-of-the-art information technology initiatives," said Robert B. Goergen, Blyth's Chairman and CEO. "We are making technology investments across each business segment, with the expansion of the PartyLite Extranet in the Direct Selling Group, additional sales force automation tools in the Wholesale Group and enhanced customer relationship database management capabilities in the Catalog & Internet Group."
CBK's new sales efficiency tool allows sales representatives to expedite the order-writing process and improves accuracy while eliminating the need to key in orders manually at the home office. The web-based application delivers completed orders to the CBK's vertically integrated fulfillment operation, allowing orders to be processed faster and reducing the chance for errors. Sales representatives carry a laptop computer and color printer for use with the new automated system, which allows customers to receive a color copy of their order with thumbnail images immediately. The automation also provides customers with more accurate and up-to-date pricing information, product availability, and status of their order.
Commenting on the new technology, Bruce G. Crain, President of Blyth's Wholesale Group, said, "Automated sales and marketing software is an important new tool for CBK's sales force, helping both its customers better manage their business and its sales representatives to decrease substantially the time spent on paperwork. As a result, the sales representatives are able to focus on the customers' needs and the products available to satisfy to them."
In addition to improved order fulfillment, the system allows for improved customer marketing and re-ordering. Sales representatives can search CBK's line of more than 5,000 products and group like-items easily. Following a successful test period last spring, CBK's new technology has been made fully available to its over 200 sales representatives and managers.
Blyth, Inc., headquartered in Greenwich, CT, USA, is a home expressions company competing primarily in the home fragrance, home decor, seasonal decorations and gift industry. The Company designs, markets and distributes an extensive array of candles, home fragrance products, decorative accessories, seasonal decorations and household convenience items, as well as tabletop lighting and chafing fuel for the Away From Home or foodservice trade. Blyth manufactures most of its candles and sources nearly all of its other products. Its products are sold direct to the consumer under the PartyLite(r) brand, to retailers in the premium and specialty retail channels under the Colonial Candle of Cape Cod(r), Colonial at HOME(r), Carolina(r), CBK(r), and Seasons of Cannon Falls(r) brands, to retailers in the mass retail channel under the Florasense(r), Ambria(r), FilterMate(r) and Sterno(r) brands, to consumers in the catalog and Internet channel under the Miles Kimball(r), Exposures(r), Walter Drake(r), The Home Marketplace(r) and Directions ... the path to better health(r) brands, and to the Foodservice industry under the Sterno(r), Ambria(r) and HandyFuel(r) brands. In Europe, Blyth's products are also sold under the PartyLite(r), Colonial(r), Gies(r), Liljeholmens(r), Ambria(r), Carolina(r), Kaemingk(r), Edelman(r) and Euro-Decor(r) brands.
Blyth, Inc. may be found on the Internet at www.blyth.com.
This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements include statements concerning plans, objectives, goals, strategies, future events or performance and underlying assumptions and other statements that are other than statements of historical facts. Actual results could differ materially due to various factors, including the slowing of the United States or European economies or retail environments, the effects of our restructuring, the risk that we will be unable to maintain our historic growth rate, our ability to respond appropriately to changes in product demand, the risk that we will be unable to integrate the businesses that we acquire into our existing operations, the risks (including foreign currency fluctuations, economic and political instability, transportation delays, difficulty in maintaining quality control, trade and foreign tax laws and others) associated with international sales and foreign sourced products, risks associated with our ability to recruit new independent sales consultants, our dependence on key corporate management personnel, risks associated with the sourcing of raw materials for our products, competition in terms of price and new product introductions, risks associated with our information technology systems (including, susceptibility to outages due to fire, floods, power loss, telecommunications failures, computer viruses, break-ins and similar events) and other factors described in this press release, in the Company's Form 10-Q for the quarter ended October 31, 2004 and in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended January 31, 2004.