Located in Cortez, CO, West Slope Liquors is in its 21st year of business serving liquor, wine, and beer to the surrounding community of 10,000, as well as to customers from the nearby states of Utah and Arizona. ECRS recently spoke with owner Jim Wilson about how he is using Catapult to help manage his beverage retail operation.

ECRS: Tell us a little bit about your business and the clientele do you serve?

Wilson: We serve a large portion of the local population, as well as a number of tourists who are in the area visiting Mesa Verde National Park, along with customers from surrounding Indian reservations. Cortez is basically a small farm town. Despite the size of our town, we do have three other competitors in our immediate area.

ECRS: How has Catapult made things easier for you as a store owner?

Wilson: West Slope has been using the Catapult system for three years and it has more than exceeded our expectations. The system is three times faster than our old POS, making our customer throughput extremely efficient.

ECRS: How did you arrive at Catapult as your store's retail automation solution?

Wilson: Having a local Catapult dealer in close proximity to our business was very comforting. The many Catapult testimonials I read made a big difference as well. We called some of the bigger stores who were using the system and got nothing but positive feedback. When we encountered problems with our old POS provider, it was such a hassle. They overcharged us and blamed us when the system went awry. If we'd started out with Catapult, we would have saved a lot of money on maintenance and technical assistance. With Catapult we run credit cards, do less paper work, and have a much easier time performing closeouts. Catapult has helped us double our customer traffic over the course of the three short years we've had the system.

ECRS: How do you use the data from Catapult reports to guide your purchasing?

Wilson: Tracking inventory is really simple with Catapult. If a particular product is not selling well, Catapult's powerful Item Movement report lets us know so we can mark it down and get rid of it. The same goes for popular items. If the product is really moving out the door, Catapult tracks that for me and I can make sure to keep the shelves stocked.

ECRS: How does the hand held scanner work for you in terms of receiving inventory and backroom scanning?

Wilson: Catapult's hand held terminal functionality is great. Before I had the HHT, we had to manually input the inventory, which was very time consuming and costly. The power of Catapult combined with the mobility of the hand held terminal has saved our store quite a bit of time and money.

ECRS: How has Catapult's touch screen helped with training new employees?

Wilson: I currently have five employees, and getting them up to speed on Catapult's POS terminals was really simple. Catapult is extremely user friendly, which is one of its many strengths.

ECRS: Would you recommend Catapult to other retailers?

Wilson: As long as West Slope Liquors is in business, we’ll be using Catapult. I would recommend it to any retailer wanting to speed up their customer throughput and streamline their store operations.