Business Name: Location: Operation: Owner: Store Manager: Number of Employees: Gross Annual Sales: | Abernathy's Northwest Hobbies Bellevue, Washington, United States This hobby shop specializes in radio-controlled products. Oscar Ayala Jeremy Baker 8 More than $1 million US per year |
On This PageThe Problem: The Need for SpeedAs a single store facing competition from larger rivals, Abernathy's needed to keep pace. Sadly, the store's outdated computerized sales network, a rapidly aging DOS system, was hardly up to the task. It was grossly unreliable, particularly with credit card sales and inventory management. The system was forever crashing, too. "It would always crash right in the middle of a sale," says store manager Jeremy Baker. "It would take roughly 10 to 20 minutes to reboot the system and get the other work stations online." Another white elephant: Inventory management. "Inventory on the old system took roughly two days to do," says Baker. "We had to shut down the store and bring in all of our employees to do a [physical] inventory [count]." The Solution: Reliable AutomationAbernathy's was in desperate need of a reliable sales system and a better way to track a diverse inventory where hot items and sluggish sellers are often difficult to identify.
 | A lot of people think, 'How can I afford a system like this?' How can they afford not to have a system like this! |  | | Dan King
New West Technologies
Seattle, Washington, United States | |
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"If you don't know what's moving, you may be wasting valuable floor space where you could have hot items selling instead," says Dan King of New West Technologies, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner who helped install Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System (RMS) (formerly Microsoft Retail Management System) at Abernathy's. Microsoft Dynamics RMS stepped in to tackle these critical issues, King says. And it wasn't long before the benefits became tangible. "The main list of challenges we saw were inventory control, slow credit card processing, and purchasing," says King. "They had learned to live with these inadequacies, as many people do who have older systems." The Benefits: Fast and Steady Business Processes1. | Reliable credit card sales. The old system used a slow dial-up network that slowly ground out receipts (and only if it stayed online long enough to complete the transaction). By comparison, Microsoft Dynamics RMS handles the same task in a flash.
"Credit card processing with our new system is extremely fast," says Baker. "In roughly two seconds you get verification, and a receipt is printed out right after that." King adds that the credit card processing is all integrated—from the digital signature of the customer all the way to a single receipt. | 2. | Faster settlement. Microsoft Dynamics RMS has not merely introduced a credit card processing network that's both quick and reliable; it's also made end-of-day settlement a snap. "This allows for integrated settlement and consolidated reporting, as opposed to a register-by-register settlement which a lot of merchants go through today," says King. "There's a tremendous amount of time savings." | 3. | Speedy inventory management. King said his company created an application that allows Abernathy's to do real-time, physical inventory counts with a pocket PC network. This saves time (no more store shutdowns for inventory counting), and it keeps cashiers out of the backroom and in front of the customers. "This saves money in the long run because it makes the inventory more accurate; you're not wasting a bunch of employee hours, which is a problem that many small retailers face."
For one thing, store personnel can quickly see which items are selling and those lagging behind. From there, the system provides a fast, efficient network to fill inventory holes.
"Using a real-time purchase order module, they roam around the store and scan the items they need, adding quantities on the fly. It then sources them out by vendor and creates purchase orders which are then electronically transferred to their vendors and suppliers," King said. | 4. | More useful sales reports. Microsoft Dynamics RMS addresses a critical need through the system's broad and flexible reporting capabilities. "The reporting systems are very dynamic," says Baker. "You can get a brief summary of your inventory or of sales or you can actually get a detailed explanation of an item or of a particular day." | 5. | Detailed customer information. Customer likes and dislikes and buying habits provide invaluable data for overall sales strategy and inventory adjustments. "It allows you to maintain a great deal of information on the customers—what they're buying, when they're buying it, and what they like to have presented to them," says King. "There's a great deal of customer loyalty." | 6. | Speedy changeover easily learned. King says the automated system was implemented one evening after the store closed and was ready for business the next morning. The next business day, Baker says the new system was "extremely easy for the employees to learn. We were actually able to comprehend and understand the sales process in roughly a day." |
The Bottom Line Baker says the store is now running efficiently and that the system has proven "extremely affordable and would be very beneficial to any retailer." Already, King predicts Microsoft Dynamics RMS will pay for itself by year's end. "A lot of people think, 'How can I afford a system like this?' How can they afford not to have a system like this! It pays for itself, improves the customer experience, saves time and money, and employee costs and down time. Overall, it improves employee morale which is obvious to the customer." Contact Us for More Information about Microsoft Dynamics RMS
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