Simply Pleasure
Symon Reeves, National Retail Manager at Simply Pleasure, says that Retail IT helped his business “manage product and employees to improve margin by 6% across the business and grow net sales by 5%.” Here, he talks about his experience of working with Retail IT.
The company: Simply Pleasure
The Simply Pleasure brand stands for adult accessories and lingerie of the highest quality. We put our absolute everything into ensuring that our customers get the maximum value from our products at the lowest possible price. We’ve been in this business for over 30 years, so we know our product well! With 33 stores, and online and direct channels, we run a multi-channel business, so our requirements were fairly exacting.
The need: A retail system to improve performance in tough economic times
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“Retail IT acted quickly, professionally, and with our business in mind, rather than their own.” |
The business (and the UK economy as a whole) was anticipating tougher times ahead with the likely economic downturn imminent. It was decided that rather than rely on existing paper-based stock systems to manage an increasingly complex array of product, we needed a more sophisticated system.
As with most retailers, product is Simply Pleasure’s single largest cash investment. It was crucial for the business to have product visibility on an item-by-item level, to see how that investment was performing and take action to improve performance.
Specifically, we sought to deal with:
- inventory control and quantifying stock shrinkage levels
- discounting and its impact on margins
- productivity, and the real performance of sales employees, backed with factual evidence
- merchandise-based reporting to understand item-by-item performance (including information on sales, margin, sell through, top sellers, etc.)
The solution: Why we chose Retail IT
We identified Retail IT as the right partner to help us address these needs. Three key considerations made them an excellent choice for Simply Pleasure.
1. The Retail IT team
A partnership is only as strong as the people that make it up. I would describe the Retail IT team as professional, personable, innovative, competent, service focused and committed - people we’re glad to be involved with to help us grow our business.
2. The software
This allows local managers enough autonomy (for instance in proposing orders, new items, etc.), but enables management to retain control and full visibility. Another key factor was the ability of the software to report across all locations, or single locations combined. Finally, the flexibility of the solution enables the Retail IT team to bolt on and integrate new applications to work alongside existing software.
3. Price
The solution is excellent value for money and very affordable, with support pricing being based upon locations used, instead of a flat rate.
In terms of working with Retail IT, it’s fair to say that all relationships have their ups and its downs, but what was important from our perspective was that when things went wrong Retail IT acted quickly, professionally, and with our business in mind rather than their own. Retail IT are always professional, honest and timely. When something cannot be done they say so openly; when it can be, it is done to our deadline.
Retail IT act like a business partner, not just a supplier: they want us to win, and likewise we want them to win too. Moreover, we enjoy working with Retail IT.
The return on investment: Margin improved by 6%, net sales up 5%
The bottom-line impact of this relationship is that it has allowed us to manage product and employees to improve margin by 6% across the business and grow net sales by 5% at the same time – even as the UK economy and discretionary income shrank.
The future: Growing together
When we look at IT for our retail business the first call is to the Retail IT directors for advice, and to discuss options together. We have just taken on Swift BI (retail business intelligence) to give us a greater reporting power, and 2011 sees us rolling out YESPAY (payment solution).
The benefit to our business has been huge thus far and we see that working with Retail IT will give us even more value in the future as they continue to innovate and grow.