Location: Jordanstown, Newtownabbey, County Antrim
EDGEPoS Solutions: EDGEPoS including Self-Checkout
Results: Efficient, time saving EPOS that allows better management onsite
Located in Ulster University Jordanstown, SPAR has been a convenience store onsite for over 18 years now. It was taken over by Mount Charles Group in 2013, and the current Manager, Dunstan Gorman, was brought in then. Dunstan has had a long career in Retail Management and has relished the opportunity to grow the sales in this unique SPAR store.
Henderson Technology installed EDGEPoS onsite in January 2017, and upgraded all the Hardware in August 2018 to the latest tills with integrated services such as EFT payments. At this time a new EDGEPoS Self-Checkout till was also added. This complimented the other upgraded additions such as Barista Coffee and the new signage and uniforms. Dunstan tells us,
“Having EDGEPoS installed in 2017 has made a huge difference to my working day. EDGEPoS has allowed us to speed up transactions and eliminate any mistakes that were made on the old system.”
“Everything we do is stock controlled and we use sales based ordering. On the old system we had to print stock reports line by line. Now we have everything we need in one report at the click of a button. I have full visibility of all transactions in the journal on the back office, this is essential for me managing the team. Just yesterday, I had to check which employee had sold a stamp, as I knew we didn’t have any, and it went into negative stock. I was able to go onto the back office and see instantly who had sold the stamp at what time and at which till. Genius!”
EDGEPoS concentrates on the three main areas of running a Retail business; Operational Efficiency, Security and Business Development. When we asked Dunstan for his feedback on these areas of the systems he told us,
“The operational side of EDGEPoS ensures that it is far less likely for cashiers to make errors on the tills. The PLUs are self-populating on each till, ensuring a much speedier service.”
Dunstan adds,
“We have full control over our system. There are extra functionalities on EDGEPoS compared to our old system that allow us to have more security in-store. These include authority levels on the front end till and back office PC. The Password Audit Report is essential, this is monitored on a daily basis and picks up any mistakes that have been made, thus increasing profitability.”
And finally ,
“EDGEPoS enables us to develop and grow our business. Take the Low and High Margin Report – we use this weekly to ensure that there all products are keyed on correctly. We also use the Current Stock Valuation Report on a weekly basis.”
Interestingly SPAR Ulster University Jordanstown needs to offer a dual currency tender option. Dunstan said,
“Approximately one third of our customers are from ROI. EDGEPoS multi-currency tender is essential for us onsite.”
Mount Charles made the strategic decision to introduce an EDGEPoS Self-Checkout lane in August 2018, for the start of the 2018 / 2019 academic year. Traditionally, the first term of the year is extremely busy, with queues stretching around the store and outside. In the morning time, the three EDGEPoS tills are used by cashiers; but with the clever offering from Henderson Technology, this store switches one of the existing tills into a Self-Checkout option from late morning onwards. This frees the staff up to carry out other tasks around the store. Dunstan comments,
“Both the staff in-store and our customers are now fully engaged with the Self-Checkout till. Our members of staff enjoy working in the modern and bright store, and EDGEPoS Self-Checkout adds to the feel of this. We have received great feedback from our customers as they are able to serve themselves and beat the queues much quicker.”
Dunstan adds,
“In our experience, it took around two months from the EDGEPoS Self-Checkout was installed, for a steady flow of customers to come back and use the Self-Serve option. We now have on average 400 transactions being processed on Self-Checkout per week, that is one in every four of all card transactions.”
“EDGEPoS Self-Checkout fits in with the current retail trends. It is cashless, which cuts out any fraud. Our card sales grew by 16% in the past year, which ties in perfectly with EDGEPoS Self-Checkout.”
When we asked Dunstan to summarise EDGEPoS he told us,
“EDGEPoS gives me full transparency of all the data needed to allow me to run this store. It is 1000 times better than our old system. EDGEPoS is market leading.”
We’ll take that Dunstan!
Henderson Technology works hard to provide our Retailers with the most innovative features and solutions. We are proud to be recognised by industry leading organisations for EDGEPoS EPOS Software.