This helps employees serve customers, check stock and process payments from anywhere in the store, directly using iPhones.
Amar Dehal, Head of Operations at Cole Buxton, says that the “queue busting” technology was essential in reducing waiting times for customers, especially after its experience during Covid-19 lockdown when people queued outside the store and staff had to bring out devices to avoid lost sales.
“You can’t keep customers waiting too long,” he says. “You need to be able to check them out then and there. Or, if a product isn’t available, have it delivered to their preferred location, whether it’s at home or a hotel.”
Cole Buxton started out in 2014 with the idea of redefining contemporary sportswear to suit the modern man’s lifestyle.
Six years later, following increasing online sales and a growing range of over 300 items, the label decided to open its first physical store in London’s Soho — which opened in 2020 between lockdowns.
The store was viewed as the ideal platform to allow the fashion designers and founders Cole Buxton and Jonny Wilson to communicate directly with customers about their values as they grew the business beyond a digital only model.
Physical store sales now account for around 15% of annual sales. In 2021, 70% of sales were direct-to-consumer (DTC) and the brand wants to keep sales through wholesale partners and department stores down to a minimum.
The retailer projects annual sales of £20 million in 2022 amid rising sales abroad – notably 15% in the US and 10% in Germany – with new stores being considered in New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Tokyo and Berlin.
Prior to opening its first physical store, it experimented with pop-up stores in 2019 and relied on “a fairly basic” fixed PoS system that “wouldn’t have allowed the business to grow internationally, or allow staff to serve customers effectively while on the move.”
Dehal knew that the company needed to invest in an innovative and functionally rich PoS solution that could serve its developing retail system requirements abroad, to help them adhere to local compliance regulations and provide a building block to support growth over the next 10 to 15 years.
The company chose the aforementioned mPOS, which was implemented by Cegid’s UK-based reseller MWC Partners. MWC also developed a wireless payments connector to facilitate integration with Planet.
The software also integrates with Shopify, which Cole Buxton uses for cataloguing products online, ensuring it has up to the minute, accurate information on customers, stocks and sales.
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