An Interview with Manager Casey Greene

Casey Greene is the store manager for Greene Pharmacy in Steel, MO. Greene Pharmacy has been in business for 25 years and has been running Catapult for almost two years. Mr. Greene took some time out of his busy schedule recently to tell us about his successes with Catapult.

ECRS: Tell us about Greene Pharmacy.

Greene: My father started the business many years ago in a little building across the street. Twelve years ago we moved into a bigger building to accommodate our growing business. Our store has a little bit of everything. We sell tropical fish, health and beauty products, greeting cards, gift wares, groceries, baby care, household cleaning products, and toys. We'll probably be adding a sporting goods department in the near future.

ECRS: Tell us about the clientele at Greene Pharmacy?

Greene: We get a wide range of ages and income brackets, a large portion of which are Medicaid recipients. To service our customers, we run three Catapult point-of-sale terminals for checkout, and a fourth one in the pharmacy that we have connected to a receipt printer for doing house charges. We have ten employees and do several hundred customer transactions a day.

ECRS: How does Catapult perform in your fast-paced environment?

Greene: Very well. We were using an old cash register for too many years, so the transition to a modern point-of-sale system has made a huge difference. One of the biggest changes is in our accounts receivables. We used to have to write everything on paper and ring everything up to validate it. Then it would have to be manually typed into the system, which meant our records were not updated until the end of the day. Now with Catapult that's all done in real time. The clerks can look up accounts right there at the POS without having to walk to a different computer in the back to see if they can charge or what the customers owe on their account. Catapult has reduced our handwritten paperwork to a bare minimum. We have a customized report that now takes only ten minutes to print. Before implementing Catapult, this same report took us anywhere from two hours to an entire day to generate.

ECRS: How did you decide on Catapult as the automation solution for your store?

Greene: We did a lot of searching online before my father eventually came across Catapult. From there we had a thousand questions and ECRS had all the right answers. After an ECRS sales representative gave us an in-store demonstration, we were totally sold on the solution. Catapult could do so much that we needed immediately, and had functions we'd never thought of, but that we knew would be useful in the long term.

ECRS: Has Catapult exceeded your expectations of what it means to automate your system?

Greene: Absolutely. I used to work at Walmart, and they had a really smart system that I was accustomed to working with, so we were looking for a system that came close to that in terms of functionality. Since then I have found many things that make Catapult better than that system. For example, I had made a purchase at Walmart and was trying to track it several days later. I was able to provide specific information like my name, credit card number and the purchase order, but they still could not find a record of the transaction without a specific date. Now with Catapult, I can look at a broad date range and I can have that information in seconds, no matter how or when a customer paid. Catapult really makes it easy to look up information regarding a customer's sales history.

ECRS: Are you using Catapult's Promotional capability to drive retail sales?

Greene: Yes. I have a whole list of Price/Cost Change worksheets. If next week I'm doing 50% off on items that are pre-scanned, Catapult lets us setup the promotion's time frame the night before, so when we arrive in the morning, the system is setup for that specific promotion. Catapult then turns that promotion off automatically based on the end date we set, which is very convenient. It's really easy to do and we frequently use that function.

ECRS: How does Catapult's touch screen Register Emulation make things easier for you at the point of sale?

Greene: Catapult makes it easy to navigate through each screen, so cashiers don't have to remember a bunch of key functions. Catapult lets me design the colors, sizes, and placement of all the buttons on the register, which is also nice for training purposes.

ECRS: Have you ever had to run your POS terminals when your network connection was down?

Greene: Yes, and it worked great. I have also run my point-of-sale wireless for sidewalk sales with a terminal outside the store. We ran completely wireless and afterwards we hooked back in and the system automatically replicated all the data transactions. Catapult also processes our credit card transactions, which take an average of three seconds to authorize.

ECRS: How does Catapult's reporting help you manage your inventory?

Greene: I do a lot of reporting on sales and non-moving items. These reports compare department total sales figures up or down. I run these reports for specific date ranges to evaluate our sales for certain times of the year.

ECRS: How do you feel about Catapult's ability to grow with your business?

Greene: Very positive. Since we started with Catapult we have added two workstations, and we are still growing.

ECRS: How does the hand held scanner work for you?

Greene: I have a wireless browser-based hand held terminal, which is great for inventory, as well as for labels, promotions, and scanning. I have a workstation set up on my laptop, which is on a wireless connection, so it acts like a second hand held terminal.

ECRS: Would you recommend Catapult to other retailers?

Greene: Yes, and I have done so on more than one occasion.

ECRS: Can you rate the quality of technical support you have received with Catapult?

Greene: I give the ECRS Support department a 9 out of 10. It's clear to me that ECRS has put extra effort into serving their customers' needs.

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