Foster Cross-Channel Integration

Bottle King Liquors; a wine, spirits, beer, and gourmet foods retailer; operates 14 brick-and-mortar locations under the name Bottle King. Though not officially under the Bottle King name, the company also operates an e-commerce wine retailer called The Wine Buyer. The retailer's POS and back office management software and the company that provided it caused several problems for Andrew Malsbury, IT administrator at Bottle King. The lack of cross-channel integration coupled with the vendor's inability to complete projects in a timely manner led Malsbury to purchase a fully integrated enterprise and retail management solution.

Poor Vendor Support Leads To Inefficiencies
Malsbury describes the relationship with the retailer's former POS software vendor as "hit or miss." While some of the vendor's services and the software's functions were satisfactory, many were not. "For example, the vendor had completed a software customization for us in early stages of our relationship," says Malsbury. "But, we experienced server failure, and we lost documentation and the ability to use the customization that was provided for us. The vendor refused to take the steps necessary to reimplement the software even though we had already paid for it, which made us extremely unhappy."

Indeed, Malsbury states there are many services Bottle King requested and paid for that either were not delivered at all, or were not delivered in a timely manner. For instance, under the old POS software system, Bottle King handled and processed sales for The Wine Buyer in two steps. Since the website was not integrated with Bottle King's POS software, the people responsible for handling those orders had to first process the orders online and second, input the order into front end of the POS system. Therefore, they were doing the same work twice — a process that was inefficient and prone to human error.

Don't Rely On A Master Cash Register
Bottle King experienced issues with its cash registers, as they did not operate independently. Rather, they were dependent on both local servers in the store and a local master register, which was used to control all other registers. If the server failed, credit card processing was done through the master register via software called PCCharge, POS payment processing software from VeriFone. If the master register went down, cashiers lost the ability to process credit cards on existing registers. Also, there was no way to close out at end of day if the master register failed.

Displeased with the POS software and the lack of services provided by the existing vendor, Malsbury researched and chose Magstar Total Retail, a fully integrated enterprise and retail management solution, because of its ability to integrate brick-and-mortar sales with Web sales. In addition, Magstar's software allows all registers to operate independently. The registers can process their own credit cards, as opposed to relying on one machine. The vendor's software enabled the retailer to seamlessly integrate its accounting systems, POS system, and inventory system.

Since implementing Magstar Total Retail, Bottle King has achieved its goal of integrating its brick-and-mortar sales with The Wine Buyer's sales. Cashiers no longer have to input sales data twice, as the software completes the process. Cash registers run independently, freeing the retailer of inaccurate sales data.