Prestigious Beverage Retailer Installs Catapult
Bluegrass Beverages is
a comprehensive wine and spirit retailer in Hendersonville, TN, a suburb of
Nashville. Its proximity to the world's country music capital makes it a haven
for country music stars. Johnny Cash, Reba McEntire, Ricky Skaggs, Garth Brooks,
and the late Roy Orbison have all been known to shop at Bluegrass Beverages.
Owner Bill Sinks knows all of the Oak Ridge Boys by first name. ECRS caught up with Mr. Sinks recently and
talked about how his company is benefiting from Catapult.
POS Evolution : A Family Business Grows with the Times
Back in the mid 1980s, before Bill bought the family business from his
father, his father told him he thought they needed to implement a speedy and
accurate inventory control and scanning system. So they replaced their manual
registers with some standalone POS computers that Bill admits "were not really
built for the rigors of retail." After about 2 years the system crashed on
Christmas night. That January, Bill went searching for a new POS system that
could handle the expanding family enterprise. He ended up choosing TEC's
hardware for the company's reliable reputation. Bill chose ECRS's Simple
Retailer for its inherent simplicity, accuracy, and ease of entering invoices.
"Simple Retailer did a great job for us, but we finally outgrew it after 8 years
of intense use." Having ignored the first mention of Catapult as a possible POS
replacement, Bill eventually agreed to let Woody Miller of Postec present a
demo. "I went absolutely bananas when I first saw Catapult," says Sinks. "I was
even more excited when I found out it was an ECRS product."
Catapult End-User School : A Continuing Education
This past August Sinks attended ECRS's intensive 3-Day Catapult School in
Boone, NC. "I learned oodles more about Catapult than I ever knew before. I
highly recommend the school for all Catapult users," says Sinks. "When we first
installed Catapult, I learned only what I needed for my store's day-to-day
operations. After 3 days of classes I was organizing my database by brand and
category, prioritizing re-order points, and earmarking all of my suppliers. I'm
now using Catapult as a true buying and selling tool." Sinks is planning to send
his top two managers to an upcoming Catapult School.
Catapult's
Feature Set : Security, Promotions, & History
As for Sinks' favorite aspects of Catapult, he had this to say."The
system's security checkpoints are great. All of my employees have their own
entry code and password, so I never worry about the security of the individual
cash drawers. I love Catapult's ability to let me view my history with the time
frame of my choice. This makes for an invaluable holiday projection tool for
purchasing and sales," explains Sinks. "With Catapult's Price Change Worksheet I
run promotions for which the system automatically begins and ends the
promotional price. Catapult's detailed reporting lets me analyze the promotion
to determine if it was justified in terms of profit percentage and dollars to
the bank. And from a retailer's perspective, that's what it's all
about."
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