What's the best for you: tailored or off-the-rack?
Choosing a POS system, can be a lot like choosing a new suit. If you're more or less average in build, you can, if you want, head over to the local department store and buy a serviceable suit at a reasonable price right off the rack. Sure, the fit may not be perfect, but it can be replaced in a year or so pretty cheaply. For a few dollars more, you can go to a tailor who'll create a suit that fits perfectly and will last 10 years or more. And so it goes with choosing a POS system. Plenty of retailers get by well enough with systems purchased essentially off-the-rack, but retailers who want a perfect fit, tailored to their specific markets and needs, are finding it much smarter — and more cost-effective in the long run — to opt for POS systems that are targeted to their specific verticals.
One-Step POS
Atlanta-based The Paradies Shops, with 360 stores in 60 airports and outlets that range from newsstands to branded concepts such as PGA Tour and Brooks Brothers, shares the traditional retail headache of em-ployee turnover and training. According to Paradies' director of IT John O'Hare, IBM's SurePOS 600's touch screen was a major factor in its POS decision-makin process. "We'd seen touch screen in restaurants," O'Hare says by way of explanation, "but none in specialty retail." As of this writing, The Paradies Shops has rolled SurePOS 600s out in 300 stores, with the remainder scheduled for 1Q 2004. "The touch screen has reduced our training time to less than 30 minutes per employee," O'Hare says.
A unique challenge of The Paradies Shops is replenishment, since its "airside" outlets (those beyond security checkpoints) can only receive replenishment merchandise at specific times. Previously, replenishment meant bringing lots of everything when possible and hoping nothing ran out. So a POS that could generate on-the-spot replenishment reports wasn't just a want but a need, as was extreme customization capability so The Paradies Shops could use a single POS system across all its different outlets. "We have to be able to restock and reorder very precisely and in a very timely fashion," O'Hare says with understatement, "and the SurePOS 600 has given us that capability. We used to do everything manually. Now everything's one step."
Multichannel POS
REI, the Kent, Washington-based outdoor giant with 66 stores in 24 states, was looking for a POS system that would go beyond the traditional, according to spokesman Mike Foley. "Multichannel retailing is our focus," he explains, "so we needed a highly integrated database and technology infrastructure that allows all transactions to take place across all channels." To achieve this, REI is using IBM POS integrated with IBM Websphere e-commerce atop an Oracle database.
This integration, says Foley, was the key to REI's latest push — "ship to store" online sales that allow customers to have their merchandise shipped to their local retail outlet rather than to their homes with no shipping charges. The merchandise is shipped via regular replenishment trucks and held in stores for pickup, Foley explains, and he insists the process wouldn't be possible "without the upgrading of POS and technology we've gone through in the past couple of years."
Faster Training
For Altoona, Pennsylvania-based convenience and fuel chain, Sheetz, with over 280 stores across five states, turnover and training time were major considerations when making the POS decision. "We wanted to get into touch screen," Sheetz director of store automation John Moulton explains, "because we're always going to have pretty high turnover, so the easier and faster we can train new hires, the better."
Moulton and Sheetz chose Radiant's POS system — both Color Customer Display hardware and POS software — for its ability to handle Sheetz's multiple personalities — C-store, gas station and quick-service restaurant. Moulton says, "now there's the ability to merge the way our stores operate in some ways like C-stores and in some ways like QSRs. Radiant's POS is as close as we could find to having a true focus on both food and gas."
POS Customization
Customization was the key challenge Modell's Sporting Goods, with over 100 stores in the northeast, needed their POS system to meet, according to Hans Kantor, chief information officer for the sports retailer. The answer was found in Wincor Nixdorf's BEETLE/M POS system, configured with Wincor Nixdorf's SNIkey terminal and a 32-key keypad with eight softkeys, both re-programmable. "We were impressed with the versatility of the system," says Kantor. "This is a POS platform that will handle our needs well into the future."
Choosing a POS platform that will handle future needs is getting easier and harder for retailers as new offerings from heavy hitters Dell, HP and NCR enter the market.
In January of 2003, Dell's standards-based POS system (typically configured with a Dell OptiPlex desktop, flat-panel display with either standard or touch screen, programmable-key keyboard, barcode scanner, thermal receipt printer and cash drawer, and software from Retek, AutoGas, GERS and MSS Global) was installed in The Wet Seal's 588 clothing stores nationwide. The rollout required stability and ease of training, according to Wet Seal's Ron Hunt, operations manager, management information systems. "We achieved a nearly flawless success rate on first-time installations," Hunt says. "This was particularly important to Wet Seal as each system had to be up and running when the store opened the following day."
HP's POS system, based on the rp5000 system unit, focuses on flexibility, running Microsoft's XP Embedded operating system (Microsoft Windows and XP Professional are also supported) and supporting OPOS standards so users can select their own peripherals or use legacy peripherals. HP's POS partnerships offer seamless integration as well as a variety of choices to suit individual needs.
Balls Food Stores, a 28-supermarket chain in the Kansas City area, uses NCR's ACS (Advanced Checkout Solution) 6.0 with NCR's new RealPOS 80. Says Balls Food's director of database marketing Charles Owen, the NCR tech combination "allows us to create more powerful promotions more quickly and less expensively than any other system we've seen. It's a tech combination that makes choosing a tailor-made POS over an off-the-rack system even easier."