If an Alliance deal is consummated, the location hinges on iFulfillment's transportation mode, says Woods. Westport is located in Alliance's intermodal yard, a facility anchored by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe whereas Gateway is tailored for over-the-road transports. At present, most of iFulfillment's incoming goods from its half dozen clients are primarily shipped by truck, with a small parcel service used for the outgoing packages, Jeff Woods, iFulfillment's vice president of strategy, tells GlobeSt.com.

Woods of iFulfillment is declining to discuss specifics of an Alliance location, but did say that another high-tech logistics facility is in the offing for the fledgling firm, which had opened a 350,000-sf industrial site in June in Bolingbrook, IL. That site currently employs about 80, but has a maximum capacity for 400 to 500 workers.

Any decision for new distribution sites, iFulfillment's Woods stresses, will be the outcome of ongoing negotiations with dozens of prospective clients for its e-fulfillment trade. "It could be located in one city or concentrated in a few cities," he says of 2001 real estate plans for the firm that is now shipping thousands of parcels per day to consumers for its big name retailers. The fulfillment service uses a high-tech "pick, pack and ship" system of racks, conveyors and sorters to help bridge the gap between consumers and their choice for point of sales, be they bricks and mortar, catalogs or the Internet.