Graham and Green, one of the best-known stylish interior multi-channel retailers in the UK, has grown its business, reduced costs and increased efficiency, following the implementation of a retail system from Cybertill, one of the UK’s leading multi-channel system providers.
Graham and Green needed an integrated multi-channel retail system to help manage its burgeoning online and mail order business and an increased product range from an expanding number of suppliers. The business had outgrown its systems and it was becoming increasingly difficult to manage stock movements, let alone sales and suppliers. Darek Szuminski, IT Manager, Graham and Green, said, “We needed a retail system that would help to increase efficiency in stock and sales management and order fulfilment. And in turn which could integrate EPoS, ecommerce, mail order and CRM functionality, whilst being able to grow with the business.”
As the Cybertill retail system links all of Graham and Green’s sales channels, it has been able to move its mail order process in house, enabling the company to take full control of its business. This has led to reduction in stock holding, and the stock ordering process has become more efficient. Each sales channel now has visibility of all stock across the business, which has helped to drive sales. Szuminski continued, “In Cybertill you can pick stock from other locations or arrange for clients to collect from the warehouse. Having the visibility to see what is in and out of stock across all stores has allowed our central warehouse to improve customer service and sales as a result. Also we have been able to reduce our warehousing costs as the stock holding is much more efficient.”
The CRM (customer relationship management) tool in the Cybertill retail system has enabled all the sales channels to have one central record for each customer.
“Before we implemented Cybertill, head office, each store and our warehouse may have all had completely different records for each client. This resulted in a lack of continuity in the service they received. Now with Cybertill all notes, calls, orders a customer places with us is on their central record. Whenever anyone speaks to a customer, from a store or head office (where the ecommerce and mail order teams are located) we already know their whole history. So we can track problematic orders and resolve issues with greater speed and efficiency,” said Szuminski.
Merchandising has also benefited from the Cybertill multi-channel retail system. With three sales channels ordering and managing stock used to be problematic. But now the business is able to use the tracking tools in Cybertill to order stock “just in time” making their supply lines leaner whilst order fulfilment time is reduced. “The forecasting tools in Cybertill are a huge assistance to the business, especially at peak periods. They allow us to forecast stock requirements so as a business we carry the right levels of the right products at the right time,” Szuminski commented.
As Graham and Green take on temporary staff over peak periods, the systems needed to be easy to use, and the Cybertill solution perfectly fitted this brief, “Cybertill’s EPoS system is easy to navigate and very intuitive and so the sales process is straight forward. Whenever we have a new starter in-store it is easy to train them and get them going on Cybertill,” Szuminski said. “I have used cash registers in the past and they are more difficult to use than Cybertill’s EPoS system, especially if you are doing refunds, end of days and other operations – with Cybertill a few clicks and you are done.”
Graham and Green credit Cybertill with being able to manage the business more effectively, and being able to grow with the business, as Szuminski commented, “Cybertill shows you which channel is actually performing the best and what its sales are so you can actually invest money into the right areas of the business.
Cybertill proved to be really easy to implement in a short time with no extra cost. As it’s a managed service we were not limited to any EPoS hardware. It gives the same user experience through web browser from anywhere in the world. And it helped reduce our company IT costs as there is no hassle with security, system administration and back ups. It is all provided for us.”
