IT has your back: It also reduces queues
Promotion management: Retailers have long understood the power of special offers. However, trade-and-save promotions in particular can cost more to run than they bring in. Multi-site promotions management systems are designed to protect a wholesaler’s margins while its customers profit.
Self-service checkout: We all hate queuing. Systems that reduce queues have been shown to pay for themselves through increased trolley size, repeat business and new business.
Wholesalers have been slow to adopt self-service, but being able to process basket shoppers quickly and only needing one checkout operator to manage eight units has convinced retailers of the ROI.
This option will particularly appeal to small business customers who want to dash in for a ‘top-up shop’ without fear of being held up by the multi-trolley purchaser.
Imaging-based barcode scanners: While revolutionary in their day, traditional laser-based barcode scanners can still be confused by an operator’s scanning technique or imperfect codes. Leading what we believe will be a new charge in wholesale, Parfetts is converting to imaging-based scanners.
Available at similar prices to laser scanners, imaging-based scanners can recognise damaged, partially obscured or poorly printed codes, and accommodate both sweep and presentation scanning techniques. Combined, this reduces errors and increases throughput.
Simon Hardisty, company IT manager at Parfetts, said: “Within hours of the trial unit being installed, it was clear which scanner the staff preferred.”
IT is dedicated: It does exactly what you want
Cheap consumer PCs have become the default hardware on which wholesalers run point-of-sale (PoS) software. The trouble is, PC manufacturers have artificially contained prices over recent years by removing critical features needed for a trouble-free checkout. As a result, retailers have flocked to dedicated PoS systems, recognising that the higher upfront cost is far outweighed by long-term relief on time, hassle and cost.
Among them, Stax Trade Centres was struggling with PCs slowing down its tilling software and causing intermittent scanner and chip and PIN communication problems. Taking a leaf out of the retail book, it trialled a dedicated PoS and was impressed.
Derek Doyle, IT manager at Stax, said: “The PoS units took just an hour to install and haven’t been a problem since. That represents a huge cost and time saving.”
If the recession confirmed anything, it’s that your customer experience is critical to your survival. In this area, we’re learning a lot from retail: depots looking more like supermarkets, serving non-trade customers, developing symbol groups and becoming more sophisticated at customer engagement and incentives.
It makes no sense, then, to pursue a sector-specific round of painful trial and error with technology; rather, let’s adapt what retail has proven will work with real customers in the real world – then get on with the business of wholesaling.
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Checklist
Do you use any of these IT solutions?
- Web ordering: Cheaper than 24/7 phones
- Click & collect: Reduce aisle congestion
- RF picking: Save a day a week
- Route planning for deliveries: Cut fuel and driver costs
- Self-service checkouts: Increase trolley size and new business
- Imaging-based barcode scanning: Improve accuracy and throughput
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