Cards and stationery retailer to open flagship Glasgow store with mobile PoS for queue-busting support and improved service
Paperchase has announced that it is trialling mobile electronic point-of-sale (EPoS) on the shopfloor of its new flagship Glasgow store.
Visitors to the 17,000 square-foot outlet will be greeted by sales assistants with the Omnico mobile system, providing Paperchase with queue-busting support during its busy weekends.
Designed to provide a better experience for its customers, Paperchase is working with Omnico to develop a richer retail experience by joining up its stores and mobile. This mobile-assisted Paperchase shopping experience will also aid understanding of its customers to drive loyalty. A key challenge was reducing queue lengths and duration, ensuring browsing and time-poor customers complete purchases.
Supporting diverse store formats
The UK fashion design-led stationery, cards and gift-wrap retailer has developed a broad range of customer store types across its portfolio that manage different peak footfalls and operational challenges. These range from large flagship stores, typically with six tills, to smaller footprint High Street outlets that have two tills. Paperchase also operates in travel locations such as Waterloo Station and concessions in department stores that include Selfridges and Harrods, alongside its e-commerce operation.
Grace Humphries, business analyst at Paperchase, said: “Omnico has delivered a quick to implement solution for this trial that seamlessly integrated into our existing supply chain system. This demonstrated a high level of flexibility and expertise in both developing software and the hardware PoS market."
Humphries said the provider managed the entire process, resulting in the same data flowing through both the new mobile and existing till PoS systems. "Managed by Paperchase’s in-house IT teams, this approach has helped to minimise total cost of ownership,” she added.
Boosting customer service and loyalty
Operating within a seasonal trading cycle means both peak and low footfall periods. Stores located in commuter hot spots, such as the Paperchase outlet in Waterloo Station, experience this issue on a daily basis. The system enables store associates to use the MPoS devices for additional customer engagement, including loyalty programme data capturing and encouraging link sales to increase the basket size of customers looking for sales support.
The complete mobile EPoS unit comprises of the Omnico MPoS application, loaded on to an iPod Touch, a VeriFone VX600 payment device with scanner and PIN entry device (PED) and a Zebra MZ320 mobile printer, with a belt to store the devices – addressing the operational challenge of keeping one hand free to serve customers. All devices communicate via a Wi-Fi network in the store.
Discounts, promotions, price overrides and all standard PoS functionality is available on the device, in addition to the ability to take card payments. It also enables staff to offers customers a choice of email or printed receipt.
