Catapult Is A Healthy Choice For Goodness Me! Natural Food Market

An interview with Goodness Me’s, Scott Miller, Director of Technology & Business Development

For Release - July 11, 2008, Hamilton, Ontario: Goodness Me is a locally owned and operated health and natural foods store, founded 27 years ago by Janet and Scott Jacks. Five years ago, Armagh Cash Register was called in to install the Catapult Retail Automation System, in their only store. Over the last five years, increased from one to three stores, employ over 80 employees, and added thousands of products to their inventory.

Armagh Cash Register was finally able to catch up with Scott Miller, Director of IT & Business Development of Goodness Me, to find out what role Catapult has played in Goodness Me’s success.

Q: Please tell us about your business along with the products and or services you provide?

A: Goodness Me is a quality provider of natural food products and services serving the Hamilton and Burlington area. We have been in business for over 27 years and currently have 3 locations - 2 in Hamilton - Upper Gage and Locke Street - and 1 in Burlington on Fairview Street.

Q: Prior to switching to Catapult what retail POS System did you use or have in place?

A: When we first started the business we had approximately 300 SKU’s and everything we did to manage and track our inventory was done manually and we actually hand price-tagged all of our products. Today we have expanded our SKU’s to over 25,000 items with up to 18,000 active SKU’s. Before we installed Catapult, without a true POS system we didn’t have real-time management of our inventory or what products were selling, and we didn’t know what products had to be replenished or discontinued. It was a real “hands-on” POS system. We realized that to manage the growth of the business we needed to investigate various POS systems. One of the companies that we met with was Armagh Cash Register who presented the Catapult POS System for us to consider.

Q: Why did you make the change?

A: We knew that we needed to manage our business and our inventory in a more effective way, and we needed to find a system that had multi-store management that would allow us to integrate the stores and inventory into one system to help control costs, inventory levels and future expansion.

Q: When making a change what factors influenced your decision?

A: When we decided that our current system (antiquated & manual) needed to be replaced we researched the market to see who was out there offering state-of-the-art POS Systems. We reviewed a number of point-of-sale programs and had a chance to meet with Armagh and the fit was good. They were local, professional and really took the time to learn and understand our requirements and what system would best meet our needs now and in the future.

Q: What influenced you in choosing Armagh over other competitors?

A: Besides knowing who they were, we really appreciated the fact that they were a local company, close by, small enough that we were important to them, and we felt that we could work together. Our concern about some of the big publicly owned POS companies is that we were too small to them, and we’d be overwhelmed. Armagh seemed personal enough that we could build a relationship with them, and we needed that relationship, because we really didn’t understand what we were doing.

Q: So you had no real understanding of what you were getting into with POS?

A: That’s right, as we got into it we discovered that the task was huge and Armagh was very understanding and helpful with the learning curve, teaching the processes and the disciplines we needed.

Q: How was Armagh after the sales cycle? Including training, upgrades etc?

A: They were great and again it speaks to our decision to work with a local company like Armagh. From the beginning...our first system was installed over 5 years ago, and they were there from day one. Yes the learning curve was significant but their staff was very helpful in the training sessions that we had before going “live”. In fact I can remember the first day we “opened” with the new system and Armagh was there onsite all day – and having that presence was certainly reassuring and reinforced our decision to work with them. That service continued as we rolled out the system to the other locations. Armagh was there working with our staff to ensure that our customers were well served.

Q: How’d that first day with Catapult go?

A: Interestingly we had no problems that day except our cashiers trying to remember their training and figure out how to do things.

Q: What is the one key feature that sold you on the Catapult?

A: The best feature is Catapult’s reliability....even if the file server goes down we can still get our customers through the cash registers. Catapult’s redundancy system makes it so that each machine can run on its own copy of the database. It’s brilliant.

Q: How is Armagh’s after Sales Service?

A: Good... in fact I’m in touch with them quite a bit and because I have a technical background and we are changing how we use the system. You start out using 50% of what’s delivered, just the basics to get someone through cash, you can only learn so much at once. We’re now running everything they cater to, so because of that and us growing into it I talk to them a fair bit. In fact I have their number memorized. I often call John and this is the issue or this is what I want to do. I just know that I can call and get the service and most times they’ll help me over the phone. But if I want them to come out I’ll talk to John or the tech and they will come out to help me solve my issue or new operations that I want to set-up.

Q: Has Catapult saved you money?

A: If you’d like a yes or no answer it would be, yes. It’s always hard to quantify. You’re always putting time into it, but you’re hopefully running a more accurate cost for your business and pricing system for your customers. It’s faster for the customer therefore we can put more customers through quickly and efficiently. So factor putting more customers through, fewer mistakes are made, we don’t have to hand-tag everything anymore, and the fact that people trust a computer more than a sticker that’s been placed on the product; so factor everything in and yes we are saving money.

Q: How do you use the Catapult System?

A: Our main task is our cash lines and putting people and product through as quickly and efficiently as possible. We are now using it to process gift cards and in the last 6 months we have been using it for inventory control... a system that maintains inventory as product goes to cash, the actual receipt of inventory into the systems, and creating and sending purchase orders. So compared to a traditional grocer, where they may deal with 50 suppliers we deal with 300 and that’s just the nature of our products. So ordering is a bit more complex and Catapult has been able to help us work with all of the suppliers, inventory and product ordering.

Q: What are the key features and benefits of the Catapult system?

A: Reliability, Catapult provides great reliability and service. We find that our managers are using the system well for reporting to maximize buying from suppliers. It does help us operate a lot smarter than before.

Q: Is Catapult easy to use and maintain?

A: Yes, one does not need a technical background ... it’s easy to set-up and understand. Maintenance is very minimal and the delivery from Armagh provided us with a turnkey system. But someone with a technical background could modify options and create interfaces. Technically speaking, the best thing is that it does what it needs to do, tracks product information, and gets it through cash. As per designed it works as expected.Goodness Me! Catapult POS Checkout

Q: What reports do you generate from Catapult?

A: The most common type of report that we run would be item movement reports. What are we selling and during what period of time? We look at that in many different ways, by product SKU, brand, supplier, by time. We also use reports for busiest time of day to structure cashier work flow. So as you can see we initially started this as a POS system and over time it has evolved into a very valuable management tool/resource that is helping us manage the business more efficiently.

Q: Would you recommend Armagh and Catapult to competitors?

A: Yes, they are very professional have a sound understanding of not only our business but more specifically the needs of our business. They are also very responsive, knowledgeable and friendly. Being local also is a key benefit for us; they are a true business partner.

The Goodness Me Grocery POS System At A Glance:

• Full Terminal Redundancy
• Catapult Multi-Store via IP
• Magellan Scale-ScanningFor more information about Goodness Me! visit www.goodnessme.ca
• From-To Reporting
• Inventory Control with Worksheets
• Type-2 Barcodes
• Integrated Label Printing & Signs
• Category & Sub-Category Management
• Customer History From Point-of-Sale
• Hand Held Inventory Terminals (HHT)
• Catapult Self-Hosted Multi-Store Gift Card via IP

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