Background

Midland Chandlers are a chain of boat part and accessories stores owned by Euro Car Parts. The four branches supply to retail and trade customers, such as boat builders and repairers.

Brief

Euro Car Parts use Kerridges’ K8 ERP solution and the Midland Chandlers branches were using the K8 Sales Order Processing screens for processing Retail/Trade orders. This was presenting a number of challenges across the business, such as:

  • Slow order entry, due to SOP systems not typically being designed for fast customer present scenarios.
  • Complex user interface, with no touch screen possibility.
  • Lack of a reliable “offline” mode for when stores experience broadband issues.
  • No integrated credit card payments, which required rekeying transactions into a separate PDQ type device.
  • No option for customer loyalty solution built in.
  • Only partial support for POS hardware devices such as receipt printers and cash drawers.
  • No ability to trade without an internet connection, whilst at shows/events.

Arleigh International contacted Elite Integrations to ascertain if their EPoS system could be integrated with Kerridge. Already satisfied that Elite POS would cover all of the front-end store functional requirements and address challenges within the current system, it was vital that the replacement EPoS solution would integrate with Kerridge.

Solution

Elite POS was deployed across all branches, with comprehensive integration to the Kerridge sales ledger, stock, pricing and cash book to Arleighs’ specification; providing a super-fast, modern looking and easy to use touch screen POS solution that would grow with the needs of the business.

Elite POS has been configured to operate with near-live transaction postings to Kerridge, but with essential automatic failover to an “offline” mode, should the company network or internet experience any issues. This also allows Midland Chandlers to use the tills at shows, where it is not possible to access WiFi or a reliable mobile network connection.

Integrated Card Processing has been enabled via SagePay, ensuring card transactions are handled swiftly directly inside the till application and providing fast processing times and no re-keying errors into separate PDQ terminals.

Testimonials

Darren Randle, Group Commercial Director comments:

“The Elite Integrations POS solution has reduced a number of IT issues relating to internet connectivity and allows the staff at branch to concentrate on serving the customer.

The system is easy to use and offers a fully integrated payment solution, which reduces transaction times considerably.

Bespoke user screens can be easily set up within the online management suite, allowing ‘Hotkeys’ to be set up against key items or customers, to further speed up transactions.

The management suite also allows for branch specific discounts and multi buy items to be set up.

During the whole implementation phase I found Elite to be thoroughly professional and always worked to the needs of the customer, rather than their solution. Whilst they had no previous knowledge of our Kerridge ERP system they worked tirelessly to ensure the solution was delivered on time.”