Advice for other small businesses

I’d say don’t rush into anything – look at what you actually need an EPOSsoftware to do and research what’s out there because there are a lot of systems which are very similar.

The Lolly system is like some of the others, but it’s got a couple of things that pop out. It can be a standalone unit, it doesn’t have to connect to a wider system. The tills operate for eight hours without any power in them so there’s no interruption in service.

We’ve been using them for two years, running into our third now.

Lolly would be a good match whatever size we grew to. We’d look at adding more systems and a battery-operated system. Having internet available is important as we do a lot of our work in fields.

Case Study: Jake Hardy – owner of Number Six

 

Jake Hardy owns London-based men’s fashion retailer, Number Six. He says that his Vend POS system is like having an extra pair of hands in-store.

Fitting an EPoS system was pretty much the first thing I did when I took over the business in 2013. The previous owner wasn’t that tech savvy and had been tracking all the stock on an Excel spreadsheet – who knows how accurate that was and how many hours a week he was wasting with it.

It was immediately obvious the amount of time and effort we’d be saving if we automated everything and used an EPoS system. My previous experience was also in e-commerce, so I’d seen the first-hand benefits that retail technology could have when it came to time savings and sales insights.

Stock, integration, affordability

We were using Magento for our e-commerce at the time, and we needed to make sure we wouldn’t be losing any stock between the selling terminals. We also needed something that could provide an insightful overview of all of our stock, so we could see what we had to work with and effectively plan our in-store sales strategy.

There are quite a few options out there so it’s worth knowing exactly what you’ll need from your EPoS before you start looking. For us, we knew that we needed a system that would integrate well with other software and services.

And we obviously needed something that was affordable, which led us down the monthly subscription path. Vend starts from £49 a month and can be run on an existing iPad or laptop.

Vend has been great on many levels, and in some ways, it has acted like an additional full-time employee at the store.

The biggest advantage of the platform has been its sales reporting and analytics. Vend tracks every sale in real time, which allows us to view overall sales throughout the day or week. From here we can identify what is selling well and what isn’t and tweak our stock accordingly, helping us to make sure the shop floor is working to its full potential.

Helping a growing business

Since we fitted the system five years ago it has continued to serve us well, growing and adapting with us. There are constant software updates that add in extra functionality. For example, Vend recently introduced an AI assistant called Dott, that now gives us recommendations on what we could be doing differently to maximise sales.

The system is also fully scalable, meaning we can effortlessly load up new tills if we need, so we’ll never outgrow it. We recently set up a sister store called 101 Studio, and we knew from the start we’d be using Vend.

“Vend has been great on many levels, and in some ways, it has acted like an additional full-time employee at the store”

As with Number Six five years beforehand, the set up was super straightforward and we were up and running and ready to get selling in no time.

Jasmyn Philippa Hunter – e-commerce and operations at Time and Tide

Time and Tide sell household décor with a relaxed feel. Jasmyn Philippa Hunter tells of how her Intelligent Retail POS system helps her keep track of her stock which, in turn, makes her feel more relaxed.

Testimonials were important when we were looking at POS systems. Heavy consideration was also put in to the features and benefits of each and how they performed in the retail marketplace.

Important factors such as access to support services, reporting, set-up, whether there was limitation on product creation as well as ease of use/navigation ultimately led to our decision.

At that point, Intelligent Retail had won a number of awards including Best SME Retailer and Best Supply Chain Integration.

Taking stock of what we have

From the head office, stores can have different minimum/maximum quantities a well as individual pricing on items to account for regional variation –  for a company such as us, who have several stores, this is a useful tool to have in our armoury.

The import wizard also makes adding products simple with over 2000 products input in one go while images are formatted to size.

Reporting in Excel or PDF format from replenishment to goods received and sales reports, there is a wealth of reporting at your disposal with the option of re-ordering through purchase order function all controlled within head office.

Live stock by line has been a huge transformation for a company operating in several locations, meaning that regardless of location, all stores are selling items at the correct price as well as having the ability to sell from another location so as to secure the customer purchase.

Obviously, hand in hand with this comes greater stock control, meaning less money tied up in excess stock.

Finally, ease of use and navigation applied to every aspect, from order to set-up of products to shop floor selling. Our employees are ages from 17 to 50+, and as such it was imperative that staff were able to work the till and feel confident and comfortable while doing so.

This was our biggest challenge. At roll-out,  we were given insightful and thorough training to guide us through each scenario that could be faced. I would say this is an ongoing project that has brought our team closer together, with staff able to support one another.

Rolling out to new stores

Since then, we have seamlessly rolled the system out to each new store we open, with shop floor staff as well as the management team finding it an invaluable tool which gives an accurate daily picture of the business which, when used to its full potential, can see a positive impact on not only customer service, but also profit.

We have enjoyed using the platform so much, that we also opted to take advantage of the interface to website function, and recently launched a brand-new website through our EPoS company.

We are able to manage all aspects of the product portfolio from one simple area, saving us money by providing centralised stock control, reporting, product management, fulfilment and finances. As a result, we are able to deliver a consistent, high quality service to our customers while selling more than ever before.

Price-wise, it would have been an approximate £25,000 project at the time for five stores, with ongoing licence costs as well as website costs and additional licence fees as more stores opened.