IDA snatches victory from the jaws of NJ

As Seen in Long Island Business News December 1,2014 By David Winzelberg

Ruby Has, an e-commerce warehousing and fulfillment center, has signed a 10-year lease for 75,000 square feet of industrial space at 5 Inez Drive in Bay Shore.
Bolstered by an increase in online sales, Ruby Has has quickly outgrown the 25,000-square-foot digs in College Point it’s occupied since the company’s inception in 2011.
The firm’s president, Rafael Zakinov, said he also considered relocating to New Jersey, but was swayed by economic incentives approved last week by the Town of Islip Industrial Development Agency. The company is currently hiring and will staff the Bay Shore center with between 40 and 60 employees.
Ruby Has provides businesses that sell goods online on eBay, Amazon and their own websites with a turn-key picking, packing and shipping service to accommodate individual customers.
“We give them the opportunity to have very little overhead and a sliding scale on cost,” Zakinov said. “It saves companies from having to have their own distribution complex.”
Bill Mannix, executive director of the Islip IDA, said he’s pleased Ruby Has chose Islip for its expansion.
“They are growing rapidly and have recently taken on new clients that will require more warehouse space,” Mannix said via email.
Ruby Has is slated to move in to its new space by Jan. 1, immediately following its busiest season. In 2013, Cyber Monday alone accounted for $1.7 billion in online sales – and that’s expected to rise by as much as 20 percent this year, according to Statista.com.
Ruby Has isn’t just a shipper. It also inspects products for quality control and handles the entire returns process. Zakinov said with more and more retailers trying to reach a broader audience, his company’s client list has swelled.
That’s no surprise, considering the recent explosion of online retailing. Online shopping and e-commerce is expected to grow by 20 percent this year, reaching $1.5 trillion globally, according to Selz.com. In the United States, e-commerce sales are estimated to be $304.1 billion for 2014, increasing to $491.5 billion by 2018, according to Statista.
Richard Cohen, the broker/owner of Hauppauge-based Ashlind Properties who represented Ruby Has in the lease negotiations, said that while brick-and-mortar retailers may suffer from increased online competition, the industrial sector is certainly benefitting, as the demand for warehousing and distribution space from companies related to e-commerce is on the rise.
“I’m seeing it all over the place,” Cohen said.
Alberto Fiorini, a principal broker at Alliance Real Estate in Deer Park who represented landlord Prestigeline Inc. in the lease transaction, agreed.
“We’ve seen a lot more businesses that serve the e-commerce sector looking for space on Long Island,” Fiorini said. “It’s definitely growing.”
For Zakinov, the move to Bay Shore means room to grow in an area that provides efficiency through better roads and access, a marked improvement over the firm’s current location.
“You can’t turn a tractor trailer in Queens anymore,” he said. “It takes 20 minutes just to get the truck in here.”