Viking Office Products notes record year - partly due to European effort.

Riding a 26.7 percent surge in worldwide sales, Los Angeles-based mail-order office products distributor Viking Office Products Inc. last week reported record net income of $31.8 million on record sales of $565.1 million, for the fiscal year ended June 24.

The national economic recovery played a role in raising Viking sales -- domestic sales were up 16 percent -- but market penetration and galloping European sales were more important, said Lisa Billig, vice president and chief financial officer at Viking.

"This past year we mailed out 116 million catalogs," she said. Viking sells by catalog in the United States, Great Britain, France, Belgium and Australia.

The domestic office products market is being turned upside down by "superstores" -- the big, national chain retailers such as Staples, Office Depot and Sam's Warehouse, which are peddling office products to consumers at lower prices.

According to Viking literature, traditional sellers of office products -- the mom-and-pop stationary stores -- are being "devastated."

But Viking Office Products, by offering convenience and competitive prices, is part of the revolution, not part of the establishment being crumbled, said Billig.

"With the superstores, you have to drive to get there, and xerographic paper (copier paper), the No. 1 seller, is heavy," noted Billig.

In 50 major U.S. markets (including Los Angeles), Viking offers same-day delivery to customers who place orders before 11 a.m., said Billig.

Viking uses United Parcel Service on most small-package deliveries, although it also uses RPS, a rival company, in the Midwest, said Billig.

Viking prices tend to be higher than Office Depot's or Staples', but the prices include delivery -- and that has a convenience value to small businesses that often cannot afford to send someone off-premises, said Billig.

Too, Viking is penetrating Australia and Europe, and those sales are boosting overall income and revenues, she said. Sales in Australia, Viking's newest market, hit $16.1 million in the latest fiscal year. "We'll probably go into New Zealand next," said Billig.

Also in the fiscal year just ended, Viking catapulted into Belgium from its European base and warehouse in France, said Billig. "That allowed us to penetrate into a new market, without all the usual costs of going into a new geographic market," she said. "All we had to do was print a new catalogue in a Flemish, the language spoken by some in Belgium."

Despite the North American Free Trade Agreement, Viking does not see an immediate future in next-door neighbor Mexico, said Billig. "The mail service there is bad, and we are a mail order catalog. It can take three months for a catalog to get to a customer, if it get there at all," she said.

Too, "collecting on bills in Mexico is difficult, and deliveries, while getting better, are still a problem," she added.

What Billig is really eyeing is unified Germany. "I believe there is a very big future in Germany -- it is a large and advanced nation, and we are already in Europe," said Billig.