When it comes to retail it pays to know your numbers.
We work with retailers to help them get the best results, whether they're a growing retail outlet (see our Case Study) or volume selling online in a competitive marketplace.
Many of our customers are selling online and offline, so it's important that their systems are streamlined and work Xero or QuickBooks Online to keep everything as efficient as possible.
Case Study - Vend and Xero
Before we used Vend the till never added up, I was short-changed and we got the prices wrong. Now our till balances every single day.
Choosing Keeping is a boutique store in London that only sells the most beautiful stationery both online via Shopify and in their premises.
The Issues
When the owner and founder, Julia, came to us she was using Brightpearl as a retail solution but it wasn't working out for her. We helped her identify the issues that were causing her the most headaches:
- the stock system was written more for an accountant than a business owner
- as a highly aesthetic person she didn't find the user interface attractive or easy to navigate
- the cost was very high for her as a new business
- she needed more flexible features and reporting
- because her shop had limited storage space she needed to be able to track stock across different locations
We visited London and sat down with Julia to find out how we could link up the best cloud-based applications to create a powerful, affordable killer solution for her shop.
After working through the possibilities with her we came up with a solution that combined Xero as the accounting backbone, Vend as the EPOS system and Unleashed to control the stock in her physical and Shopify store.
We knew that Vend would provide her with a simple to use EPOS with low set up costs and, importantly, a sleek and simple look and feel with an Ipad-based till system that suited her shop.
We suggested Julia use Unleashed because it allows her to keep stock in multiple locations store, including her shop and also storage facilities.
Unleashed provides her with an accurate update of stock from one system: Julia can track the sales that take place both instore with Vend and online via Shopify
Using Unleashed allows her to run Margin Reports and Profit Calculations easily on a product by product basis, so she can make better decisions about which goods to stock.
The Results
Julia likes to stay in control and now she knows exactly what her numbers are at the close of business every day.
She can keep an eye on a real time view of bank information and stock information feeds into Xero, so there are no surprises.
Raising purchase orders in Unleashed allows her to standardise her purchasing and the cloning feature lets her save time and by easily replicating previous purchase orders.
Having the systems in place and being able to view the figures in the cloud means she doesn't need to be at the shop every day, so she can spend more time working creatively on the business and rely on her managers with the security of knowing she can monitor sales wherever she is.
I can't always be in the shop, but with Vend I can quickly cross-check what's happening on the floor from home and catch any errors before it becomes a problem.
The business is doing so well that Choosing Keeping is opening a new flagship store in Central London.
Case Study: Online Sales, Amazon Marketplace and A2X
Dill and Mint are specialist online retailers who sell gardening products via the Amazon Marketplace.
This comes with it's own challenges and we worked with the owners to integrate A2X and Xero to help them to understand and report accurately on their online sales.
Results
We'll let our customer speak for himself:
We sell on Amazon and, to be honest, it's a pain in the arse for accounting outputs. It doesn't hold ongoing balances and every sale is a combination of a number of transactions.
A2X takes away the complexity and aggregates the numbers so that it integrates seamlessly into Xero. Then I can play about with it to get the level of detail I need to see.
Using A2X avoids the soul-crushing need for macros and I think it's well worth the small monthly cost.
What our customers say:
Vend has really improved how the shop runs. Before we used Vend the till never added up, I was short-changed and we got the prices wrong. Now our till balances every single day
I find it really easy to train new employees on Vend because it is so visual and easy to use, plus it looks great.
We have a lot of products, but Vend is powerful enough to handle them all and easy to organise them into categories using Quick Keys. For example if we have a sale I'll set up a Quick Key for all the Sale items, or if we're running a Christmas offer I can set up a Quick Key just for that.