Home improvement retailer works with K3 to transform its systems and processes and drive growth

Home improvement retailer works with K3 to transform its systems and processes and drive growth

Topps Tiles, the UK’s largest tile and wood flooring retailer, has commissioned new store, back office and warehouse systems from K3 Retail in order to get faster and more reliable access to trading information, drive business agility and support the customer shopping experience.

Nigel Hickman, Topps Tiles IT director, said: “Operating from over 300 stores in a highly competitive market, we need to be able to respond quickly to change and we can’t do that unless we can get hold of our data quickly and analyse it to make operational, supply chain and marketing decisions. Our goal is to drive efficiency while continually improving experiences for both our retail and trade customers.”

The new systems will also drive growth, as Topps Tiles said, “312 stores nationwide isn’t enough, we continue to expand and require new stores in over 75 locations.”

Responding to customer needs

Hickman continued: “We need better stock availability and visibility in the stores so we can respond to our customers’ needs.”

In the store, K3 will install what Hickman refers to as a “real” enterprise point-of- service till, so that orders can be managed from the store, in an effort to match store stock to demand and reduce stock held in the warehouse. “We want to achieve 99% product availability to better manage our costs and keep the customer delighted,” he said.

According Hickman, Topps chose K3 because: “We were impressed at the speed at which K3 responded to our needs and were able to come up with solutions. For instance, we will soon revolutionise our inventory management and product despatch with K3’s handheld terminal platform supporting our store and growing online sales channels. We now have a flexible and stable platform on which to build many new capabilities for the future.”

K3 Retail will implement its Microsoft-based systems that will enable Topps Tiles to get information from its whole retail estate much more quickly, without dropping data and without time-consuming manual intervention.