UK lifestyle brand, Cath Kidston has opened two new, wholly owned stores in China’s prestigious Cloud 9 and Raffles City shopping malls in Shanghai, using international electronic point-of-sale (EPoS) and merchandise management software from existing provider Futura.

The two Chinese stores have been integrated into Cath Kidston’s UK network and head office system, which has used Futura’s retail management software since 2001. With multi-lingual, multi-currency support as standard, the retailer benefits from using one central system, which provide managers with a single view of the whole business, without the need for cumbersome third-party systems integration.

 

Sales and retail data from the Chinese stores will be available to UK-based head office staff and a daily price file will convert UK pricing into Chinese currency at the till. The Futura system will also automatically replenish store stock from the UK and Hong Kong.

 

Mike Padfield, IT director at Cath Kidston, said he was confident that Futura would be the right choice to support this expansion. “Previously we have worked with partners to access new markets in Asia. Futura’s international version, which fully supports China’s double byte character set, means have been able to confidently open new stores in Shanghai, linking systems directly to our UK head office team,” he commented.

 

“It means we have more control but without the need for local HO infrastructure,” he added. “At the same time Futura’s past success in meeting our UK system requirements make them the natural choice for this expansion.”

Cath Kidston has regularly updated its operational technology in support of its growth, adding multichannel, IT service support, Futura e-gift card and social networking management capabilities over the years, as well as updating the EPoS till hardware in its UK stores last summer ( Retail Technology May/June 2012, p6).