Dominoes of Leicester
Dominoes of Leicester Limited are one of the UK’s largest independent retailers of toys, arts and crafts and models. Spanning over four floors and covering many specialist departments, every effort has been made to ensure that the customer experience is as enjoyable as the products purchased. The company has been delighting their customers both young and old since the company formed in 1983.
Dominoes are a proud supplier of renowned brands such as Lego, Hasbro, Playmobil, Mattel and many more.
Dominoes have always kept up-to-date with the latest industry trends and have been an active member of the Toy Retailers Association since the business was established more than 25 years ago. The Toy Retailers Association advise members on current and future legislation, as well as ethical practices in respect of toy safety.
The Reason for Change
As a forward-thinking and customer-focused company, Dominoes wanted to speed up their business processes enabling them to meet the needs of their customers more efficiently, allowing them to be more effective in their market space.
Dominoes were already using an electronic point of sale (ePos) system which failed to meet their complete requirement. This system was being used in conjunction with their accounts software, which when faced with a modern market failed to meet the necessary standards.
Following a period of consultation, HBP Systems recommended a solution that would increase the overall speed and efficiency of the sales and the order processes. This created a better overall customer experience promoting further growth and was future proofed for future developments.
The Solution
Electronic Point of Sale
Dominoes had previously been using a basic ePos system that did not offer full business systems integration. This system was replaced by the KCPOS product which allowed total flexibility and integration. When installed, KCPOS offered functionality such as Chip and Pin and allowed live transactions to be made directly to both the accounts and stock systems.
The purpose of this change was to achieve an overall smoother business operation and allow for far more control and flexibility at the point of sale.
The implementation of KCPOS involved the installation of ten brand new tills, which increased the efficiency of the sales cycle by allowing direct control over all tills through a single interface.
Building resilience into the point of sale was a must to avoid losing potential sales should there be a technical fault, so all tills supplied had the added benefit of ensured continuation of service. This solution enabled the point of sale to run autonomously should communications with the base server be severed.
Accounts
Dominoes had previously been using Pegasus Opera 16 as their accounts solution which had served the business well, however it did not integrate directly with their other business systems. To obtain full integration an upgrade to Opera II was required. Based upon Dominoes previous experience of Pegasus software, Opera II was the natural choice. This upgrade allowed full integration of their accounts system with their new ePos system, as well as being able to communicate directly with an E-commerce website. Opera II also fully integrated with their current stock control systems.
Website
To access new markets and reach a wider audience, Dominoes implemented a user-friendly E-commerce website which and was centred on the KC E-commerce shopping cart package. This was important in making Dominoes’ range of products available online as well as enabling direct live transactions to be processed and recorded within their stock system to ensure stock availability.
An internet marketing plan was also put in to action to ensure that the new site was as visible as possible to potential customers in the search engine listings, and helped increase revenue flow through the site.
Support
Once the solution had been implemented, it was important to ensure all areas of the solution could be maintained at an operational state. To achieve this, Dominoes chose a comprehensive maintenance support contract. The standard terms of this contract guaranteed support for their point of sale, with a one hour response time, as well as all aspects of their technical infrastructure including their office equipment and network, within a four hour period.
Summary
The new system has helped improve the company’s management and control structure, which in turn has helped to refine business operations such as stock control and order processing. This coupled with the newly acquired ability to accurately report on market trends, Dominoes can now target their marketing more acutely.
The system has also enabled Dominoes to achieve a smoother customer experience, and as such helped to increase the total number of repeat orders achieved through their retail outlet, and their newly founded KC E-Commerce website.
With resilience and redundancy built into the systems from the ground up, and in conjunction with a comprehensive support contract the solution has kept downtime at an absolute minimum.
Reference
Stephen Bird, the Store Accountant, said:
“We are happy with our new fresh, modern and technological look courtesy of our new KCPOS system. The KC E-Commerce Web Shopping Cart has helped to manage our catalogue of products and process payments which are all displayed on our bright and friendly web site. We are delighted that our customers are now able to view and purchase many of our products online.
These changes have helped us deliver to a wider market and reach customers we were unable to reach previously, increasing our market share and impacting positively on our turnover. Now that all our systems communicate with each other we find it easier to operate as a business and intend to continue to review our systems.”
For more information about Dominoes of Leicester visit www.dominoestoys.co.uk