 David Costello Footwear is a ladies, men and children's fashion footwear store and also sells sports shoes. The store was established in Castleisland in Co. Kerry in the early 1980s and employs six people. Costello Footwear has installed Microsoft Retail Management System (RMS) to streamline business processes, serve customers effectively and keep pace with specific retail needs.
"We were using a basic till which was unable to give us a detailed breakdown of brand sales and margins for both brands and product categories", explains Bill Costello, Director of Costello Footwear. "We needed a retail solution that was very forward in its thinking and very user friendly. The chosen retail solution had to benefit the business by providing sophisticated, timely and accurate reporting from the till and deliver an integrated end-to-end solution, which ensures the accuracy and consistency of data". Costello Footwear selected Microsoft Retail Management System from Datapac because of Datapac's expertise and knowledge of the solution as well as their proven track record and professional sales and backup technical support service.
Costello Footwear carries in excess of 4,500 stock items including all the size and colour variants so stock control used to be extremely difficult and time consuming. "Knowing how much stock is in, which items are selling well and what your profit margins look like, is all vital information", says Bill. "Having access to this type of information can mean the difference between success and failure". With RMS, when stock arrives in it is entered as a stock item on the system and a label is printed which is attached to that stock item. At point of sale (POS) the item is scanned and the sale processed. "At POS we can now process sales, issue credit notes, gift vouchers, layaways and debtor accounts as well as check stock availability", continues Bill. "At the back office, I can check daily/monthly/full year brand sales/margins, staff sales and have up to date stock levels at the touch of a button".
The system produces a wide range of reports that Costello Footwear finds essential in helping to manage the retail side of the business. "The most important are the stock and sales reports, stock listings and analyses of suppliers, followed by reports on margins and profitability which have helped us to improve our financial performance" says Bill. "Overall the system has eliminated the need for the manual issuing of credit notes and gift vouchers. It is very easy to control layaway and debit accounts and regular stock takes can be performed using the stock take gun".
The next phase for Costello Footwear is to upgrade the website to display shoe ranges in stock which will result in better informed customers. "The solution allows me to control my buying better", concludes Bill. "It is strategic to my business".
Costello Footwear is now fully prepared for its continuing success and growth with a system that can evolve with its needs.
March 2008
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