Reevaluate Your POS Software Budget

Brad Blume, president of Tennis Express, faced a challenging decision regarding the fate of the retailer's POS system. Should he continue to operate his store with an ineffective, yet cost efficient POS system, or should he overhaul the problematic system with a proven one that exceeds the retailer's IT budget?

Tennis Express is a multichannel specialty retailer that operates one 14,000 square foot brick-and-mortar location in Houston, an e-commerce platform, and a quarterly catalog program. The retailer offers everything from tennis equipment to custom hybrid stringing for tennis rackets. For years, the retailer operated disparate POS and e-commerce systems, which caused problems among the channels as the retailer grew. "We had an e-commerce platform in the early days of the Internet," says Blume. "As our website grew, we needed a sophisticated tool that integrated with our store-level POS system."

Are Consultants Doing Your POS Software's Work?
Blume purchased a cost efficient all-in-one POS system to solve the retailer's disparate systems dilemma only to find the all-in-one system was riddled with inefficiencies. For instance, the retailer allows customers to customize their rackets by grip size, strings, and tension level. Though customers may customize their rackets online as well as in the store, the retailer had to hire consultants to create workarounds for the POS software, as the software was incapable of handling these customizations on its own. "The POS system lacked basic functionality like racket customizations and gift card processing," says Blume. "The Web component was not robust enough for our needs. We had to hire outside consultants to create workarounds for online gift cards and custom racket orders because our POS vendor was so far behind in keeping up with trends." The POS system accepted gift cards, however, it did not automatically track them. Therefore, Blume's staff manually tracked both in-store and online gift card sales and balances. In addition to these issues, the retailer's Web pages took 10 seconds to load per page. Blume states the POS vendor sometimes took months to address these problems. "The POS software was very difficult to use and understand," says Blume. "We felt like we had to have our best sales associates behind the registers instead of upselling and cross selling on the sales floor."

Frustrated with the lack of functionality, Blume attended a conference held by the retailer's POS vendor to garner information on the problematic software. The vendor assured Blume it would address all problems in the new version of the software. Yet, when the new version was released, the changes had not been made. It was at this point Blume chose to overhaul the POS software. The retailer hired two consultants to research POS software vendors. The consultants delivered information on three vendors, including Celerant Command Retail's, the software which exceeded the retailer's IT budget. After doing the math, Blume realized the money he spent on the original POS software and two consultants to support it was about the same as the cost Celerant's software application. Also, Celerant Command Retail handles POS, inventory management, purchasing, accounting, and e-commerce, which would save Blume money in the long run because he would not have to purchase additional systems.

Blume purchased Celerant Command Retail in June 2008. The retailer kept its POS hardware but purchased PIN pads from Celerant as well as Dell touch screen monitors. The vendor conducted its preparations (e.g. incorporate customer history, SKUs, and product description) before it implemented the software. The vendor sent a representative to spend a week with the retailer to implement the software. "We set up a 'war room' for testing," says Blume. "Our IT team, the Celerant representative, and I tested the application for one week before the system went live in October 2008."

Since implementing Celerant Command Retail, Tennis Express' customers can now order custom hybrid stringing and other racket customizations without consultant intervention. The retailer offers both in-store and online tennis racket rentals, as the POS software acquires the customer's information (i.e. name, address, rental period). Blume implemented an e-gift card program, which includes two types of gift cards — regular gift card and e-gift card. The e-gift card is emailed as a PDF, and it can be used immediately. Tennis Express employees no longer have to manually track gift card sales and balances, as the POS software provides on-demand reports of gift card sales data. Web pages now take 0.5 seconds to load. Blume states the POS software has put Tennis Express on par with its largest competitor. "There's one brand that is the industry leader, and now we're neck and neck with them in our e-commerce and in-store capabilities," says Blume.