60 stores - Arts, Crafts & Gifts
Informed Retailer Case Study
Kaisercraft
An integrated retail software solution
“The implementation of Retail Express was very smooth. Having a dedicated point of contact and structured process to follow meant we could roll the software out across our stores with confidence.
This was a major drawcard for us in selecting Retail Express – they don’t just build software, but they also get hands on with helping you implement it in your business.”
– Mark Sears, General Manager
Return on Investment Summary
By adopting Retail Express, Kaisercraft have been able to:
Rapidly handle high volume in-store transactions with a powerful cloud POS solution with true offline mode.
Offer omni-channel gift vouchers to maximise redemption rates.
Slash manual purchasing admin through intelligent automated inventory replenishment algorithms.
Managing rapid multi-store retail growth: the need for the right software
Producing fashion-forward paper goods since the early 2000’s, Kaisercraft are a family owned business with a global wholesale customer base and a large, rapidly growing Australian retail presence. The introduction of their retail channel operations saw their product range diversify significantly beyond purely arts and crafts supplies to include luxury stationery goods, greeting cards, gifts, and homewares. However, it also brought a greater level of complexity that Kaisercraft’s previous POS system was simply unable to handle.
“As a high-volume multi-store retailer, we have tens of thousands of transactions going through each day. We needed a POS system that could allow our store staff to efficiently and reliably process those transactions and that could not only handle massive amounts of data generated but also provide real-time business intelligence from it.”
– Mark Sears, General Manager
Switching to Retail Express:
A Smooth Multi-store Roll Out
Kaisercraft evaluated several software solutions but quickly concluded that Retail Express offered the multi-store omni-channel features, and a scalable, stable cloud platform they were seeking. With their decision made, the focus turned to rolling out Retail Express across the Kaisercraft store network. This is where the Retail Express implementation process stood out as a major point of difference for Mark and his team:
“The implementation of Retail Express was very smooth. Having a dedicated point of contact and structured process to follow meant we could roll the software out across our stores with confidence. This was a major drawcard for us in selecting Retail Express that they don’t just build software, but they also get hands on with helping you implement it in your business” says Mark.
A fast, intuitive Point of Sale Solution with True Offline Mode
In a high-volume retail operation such as Kaisercraft, the more transactions that can be processed per day the better the financial return. Being able to quickly handle these massive volumes of transactions and data – and avoid any possible delays or data loss – is not only vital to their financial performance but also affects the likelihood of customers re-visiting the stores.
“Retail Express is very quick and easy for our store staff to use. It is designed in a very intuitive way to process transactions as quickly as possible. It is able to handle the hundreds of thousands of SKUs that we have in our portfolio and provides a very powerful search to quickly identify the right SKU if there’s no barcode to scan.” says Mark.
“With the Offline POS mode in Retail Express, we can keep processing orders if our internet connection goes down. While our old system had an offline mode, it was very basic and unreliable.” Mark continued.
“Retail Express’ offline POS capabilities provide peace of mind that we have a cloud-based solution with robust features to ensure business continuity.”
– Mark Sears, General Manager
Omni-channel game changers:
Integrated Shopify Plus Webstore
Prior to adopting Retail Express, Kaisercraft were running their eCommerce systems stand alone with no integration to their in-store POS software.
By launching a Shopify Plus webstore that integrates with Retail Express, they now have a range of new omni-channel capabilities they can leverage.
“The ability to offer gift vouchers that are purchasable and redeemable both online and in-store has already been a game changer for us. We know that our customers cross over from our bricks and mortar stores to online, so this makes for a far better shopping experience for our customers and drives higher redemption rates.
There’s plenty of things we want to take advantage of in the next year and beyond including allowing our eCommerce store to leverage the inventory and fulfilment capabilities of our physical stores to improve product choice and speed of home delivery.”
– Mark Sears, General Manager
Slashing Purchasing Admin With Automated Multi-Store Replenishment
Replenishing their stores with the right quantities of inventory was highly labour and time intensive before Kaisercraft switched to Retail Express. Each Store Manager had to manage the process manually which was adding up to lots of hours of admin across the business every week. With Retail Express, Kaisercraft have been able to automate these replenishment processes saving every Store Manager countless hours of productive time.
“The automated replenishment capabilities in Retail Express have massively cut down manual admin for our Store Managers and allow them to now focus that time on value-adding activities instead. When you multiply the time saved per store by all our locations, it’s a real game changer for us.
Improving productivity and our return on investment in staff is a key business priority for us and this is just one of many ways Retail Express helps us achieve that.”