Our History
Our History
Not every company can claim to have been an innovator for over 80 years, however now in our third generation and third evolution – innovation has been central to our history. The Jay Group has consistently served as a partner to brands and retailers by solving inventory and financial challenges.
Like many young men of his time, Bernard Klitzner left New York to search for opportunities. He arrived in Rocky Mount, NC in 1932 and made our company's first purchase- a truck of Army Surplus items. That business evolved into B. Klitzner and Sons; where he purchased excess inventory from footwear factories and brought them to North Carolina to be refurbished by his cobblers and then re-sold.
David Jay came to B. Klitzner & Sons in 1971. In 1976 he bought the company and completely changed almost every facet of that business including the name to The Jay Group. Over the next 40 years, The Jay Group pioneered the business of exporting inventory to developing markets for brand sensitive clients. The Jay Group has deep international expertise and an unparalleled customer-based, giving us the ability to ship millions of units overseas every year.
Ryan Jay became CEO of The Jay Group in 2015, becoming the third-generation owner. Ryan has built a complimentary team to help lead another generational transformation of the business. This third transformation has culminated in the creation of Jay Group Re-Commerce Solutions. Ryan grew up in the family business, having worked with the product since primary school. He has spent thousands of hours within the business developing The Jay Group's robust and diverse international and domestic wholesale business, traveling millions of miles and buying and selling millions of units.
Ryan was an early believer in the power of e-commerce to transform retail and began helping customers solve return problems before most knew that would be an issue. Using that insight he developed the vision for a technology-enabled re-commerce business that could be an end-to-end solution for brands and retailers handling their most complicated omnichannel inventory and logistics problems.
