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Booming sales of skates and snow-boards propelled a rapid expansion for New York City-based Blades Board & Skate, but the growth also forced the company to put on the brakes and evaluate how it was managing its retail operations.

From 1990 to 1996, the retailer grew from a single Manhattan location to eight stores in New York City and New Jersey. Last year, when the company planned to nearly double its number of stores to 15 and expand to Boston and Chicago, executives determined that the business needed a computer system that could instantly track sales and inventory at all of its stores.

So Blades modernized its retail point-of-sale (POS) system so that executives at headquarters could keep up with sales and inventory at all locations while each store could track its own such data. The new POS system also enabled managers to make better use of information gathered from customers.

To achieve the modernization, the company upgraded its POS software to the latest version of CounterPoint, from Synchronics Inc. of Memphis, Tenn. Blades had previously used an older, less sophisticated version of the Synchronics program.

"I was looking for better information management and greater ease of use" in a new system, says Joel Silverman, chief operating officer of Blades.

Information After The Sale

Improving information management has become the critical issue for most small retailers, says Judy Newdom, a principal of Computer Sciences Corp.'s national retail practice, based in Cleveland. As a result, cash registers at many small businesses have been transformed into computerized POS systems.

Newdom says POS systems help small retailers cut costs, increase profits, and serve customers better by making the most of sales information.

"Point-of-sale registers are no longer just machines for taking in money," she says. "They are hooked up to very sophisticated information about what is in the store and also to the inventory of a retailer's other stores. So if an item is not in the store, they can find another one that has it."

Silverman says he selected the upgraded CounterPoint software after evaluating other packages because it would run on the assortment of POS hardware his firm already had. Switching to competing POS software would have required Blades to purchase new hardware, he says.

The new version of CounterPoint gives the company a quicker, more accurate, and more detailed picture of its sales and inventory than the previous version. Moreover, the program can be tied into the firm's accounting software, Dynamics, from Great Plains Software Inc. of Fargo, N.D. This enables each sale to be entered instantly into the accounting ledger.

Silverman says the revamped CounterPoint system has met the goal of providing Blades better control of its process of ordering and distributing products even as the company grows. "Inventory control is a key feature for an expanding business," he says. "There's no way that we would have been able to achieve the growth that we have had in the last year without our new POS software package."

According to Silverman, the updated CounterPoint system gives store managers tools that help them better control their operations. Employees can use the system to see what is in stock at their location and in the warehouse.

Blades stores are linked to one another and to the warehouse and headquarters by electronic mail, which has resulted in more-efficient and less-expensive communications among stores, Silverman says. And the software also allows the company to order products from vendors only when needed, decreasing the amount of warehouse space required to store inventory and thereby improving cash flow.

Instant Tracking Of Trends

When used in sales transactions, POS systems record information that is then fed into the company's accounting and inventory systems to provide constant analysis of sales trends and customers' buying preferences. Combined with the widespread use of technologies such as bar-coding, POS systems can allow retailers to track each item.

In addition, says Computer Sciences' Newdom, the systems make it easier for firms to balance their books and make tax payments and electronic transactions with banks.

Simonson Station Stores Inc. in Grand Forks, N.D., is using POS technology to gain greater control over the merchandise and transactions in its nine convenience stores.

Each store is linked to the home office through CompuTouch, a POS system from Radiant Systems Inc. of Alpharetta, Ga. The link allows executives to maintain a constant audit of sales and supplies.

"There's nothing in our operation that we don't know about" through the POS system, says Arch Simonson, the firm's vice president. "We can actually audit our stores while sales are happening. It gives us deadly-accurate information, which helps us manage our stores."

Like the CounterPoint system, CompuTouch is easy for employees to use. They ring up sales using a touch-screen terminal and a bar-code scanner. POS functions are accessed by touching icons on the screen.

# posted by Medical Information : 4:48 AM