Garden Center Revamps POS To Handle Massive Sales Volume

In 2016, revenue of the 14,000 nursery and garden stores in the U.S. was valued at around $41 billion. Competition from home centers, hardware stores, mass merchandisers is forcing individually owned retail sites to become more efficient and flexible. This is exactly what Stein’s Garden & Home has successfully achieved with a new point-of- sale system.

Stein’s is a 16-store garden center chain based in north, central, and southeast Wisconsin. Boasting an overall volume of about $60 million, Stein’s stocks annuals, perennials, and barbeque equipment, meaning half of the business is seasonal, peaking in the summer, fall, and holiday seasons.

The 70-year-old company had relied upon an older point-of-sale (POS) system, but that system could not handle the volume of business that Stein’s completes during its peak seasons. “We have 120 POS units across our 16 stores,” says Bob Young, CEO of Stein’s. “That is three times the amount one would need, but to handle the volume that comes through in our peak seasons, we need that many registers. Our old system was at ‘end of life’ and struggling to keep up with the volume.”