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Case study - Discovery

Discovery is a family-run chain of six card and gift shops located throughout Scotland. It sells everything from candles and aromatherapy products to pot pourri and glassware.

"One of the greatest challenges in our shops is the range of stock" explained owner Ann Rees. "We hold up to 15,000 greetings cards, with more added to our range all the time. On busy days, we can sell as many as 1,000 cards, so it is very important that each of our lines is tracked so we can monitor our best selling items and restock the shelves accordingly."

In order to do this, Ann Rees and her husband have invested in a new EPoS system from Bolton based solution provider, Nisyst (Nirvana Intelligent Systems Ltd), which runs on the Epson Intelligent Register (IR). Backed by the Intel power of the IR, the NPoS back office software has given Discovery the management and reporting capabilities it needs. Each shop is remotely polled every night from the company's head office, while bespoke reporting functions have been created by Nisyst, enabling the owners to see, for example, how much of each supplier’s stock has been sold.

In terms of EPoS functionality, Discovery now benefits from password controlled discounting, as well as customer service features such as receipt messaging and hold sales. This means that if a customer decides they want something else during a transaction, the sale is held and they are issued with a special barcoded receipt, which is then swiped on their return and the sale is retrieved. A hot key facility enables staff to quickly identify and process inexpensive items where there is no barcode.

Ann Rees has also been pleased with the touchscreen-based solution's ease of use: "We put the tills into our new shop with newly recruited staff, some of whom had no experience with computers," she recalled. "After an hour's training, most had got the hang of it and the onscreen prompts certainly make things much easier than our old keyboard system. All in all, we have been very impressed with the support we have received from Nisyst," Ann concluded. "We have experienced very few teething problems since the new system was installed and when there have been issues, help has always been at the end of the telephone line."