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IPod Items to Fill Warehouse: Digital Lifestyle Outfitters Doubling, Consolidating Its Storage Space in Durham

Posted on: Friday, 14 April 2006, 15:00 CDT

By John Murawski and Jack Hagel, The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C.

A Triangle-born company that sells iPod accessories worldwide is doubling warehouse space in Durham to accommodate its growing business.

Digital Lifestyle Outfitters last week leased almost 109,000 square feet in Research Tri-Center South for its iPod cases, speakers and other gadgets designed to enhance Apple's portable music player.

"We're growing at an insane rate," said marketing director Brian Baucom.

Digital Lifestyle Outfitters moved its headquarters from Raleigh to Charleston, S.C., two years ago but kept warehouses in Durham. Its products are manufactured in China and Taiwan and distributed from Durham.

The company is consolidating to a single warehouse with twice the space of the other two facilities. Digital Lifestyle Outfitters employs 14 in Charleston and between 45 and 75 in Durham, depending on the time of year.

Officials don't plan more jobs at the new warehouse.

The company's history is a page straight out of the technology boom years. Five years ago, founder Jeff Grady bought one of the first iPods on the market, fashioned a makeshift carrying case from a camera pouch and started selling carrying cases on the Internet.

Today Digital Lifestyle Outfitters makes more than 100 accessories and devices for users of iPods and other digital equipment. The products -- shown at at www.dlo.com -- are sold at stores such as Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA and Target.

The iPod can store hundreds of songs as electronic music files in a space no bigger than a deck of playing cards. Though originally designed to compete with portable compact disc players, the iPod can be linked to a car stereo or home entertainment system through products from Digital Lifestyle Outfitters.

Apple sold 32 million iPods in 2005, but DLO's growth has expanded beyond the iPod and is now tied to the explosion of digital cameras, cell phones and other handheld computerized gadgets.

One of the company's newest products is the HomeDock Deluxe, a $150 converter that lets users connect the iPod to a television screen. The TV screen shows song titles and artist names, or it is used to display digital photo images, instead of showing them on a tiny iPod screen.

One of the most popular accessories is $100 TransPod, which lets users play the iPod over their vehicle's stereo speakers.

The warehouse deal is significant for the Triangle's industrial property market, which was battered by the technology crash in the early 2000s.

Although the warehouse vacancy rate in the Research Triangle Park submarket, the area's biggest in terms of supply, has dropped in seven consecutive quarters, more than one-quarter of its 9 million square feet of warehouses are vacant.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C.

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Source: The News & Observer

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