Retailer Electronics Boutique of America Inc. had a lot going for it, including 600 locations stocked with the latest computer games, applications and accessories, and average annual revenue of $1.2 million.
Unlike the virtual worlds it trades in, however, real-world concerns troubled the retailer. Limited floor space had become a problem. Square footage allotted to each location made the shopping experience somewhat claustrophobic.
Rather than invest in new locations or renovations, Electronics Boutique decided to enhance its point-of-sale system.
With the help of vendor Symbol Technologies Inc. and reseller Kyrus Corp., Electronics Boutique deployed wireless palmtop terminals, Symbol's SPT 1740s, using the vendor's Spectrum24 network.
"Symbol was the first to market with a solution that scaled to our size," said Seth Levy, chief information officer of Electronics Boutique, based here. "We're not a huge department store or a mom-and-pop shop. What we are is a company with many small stores."
The SPT 1740, which gets hooked to an employee's belt, includes a built-in bar code scanner. An attached printer, the Comtec II, stores receipts electronically while allowing the user to print out a copy for the customer.
"When the store gets busy, an employee can walk around and take some customers off the line," said Chris Ciervo, product manager at Symbol, Holtsville, N.Y. "The device allows for a complete end-to-end transaction, from scanning in items to swiping the customer's credit card to printing the receipt. All the info is sent to the host, which is generally the main register in the store," he said.
Symbol tapped Kyrus to develop a line-busting application especially for Electronic Boutique's solution.
"As IBM [Corp.]'s largest POS proprietor, we had the retail connection and the Palm app expertise they were looking for," said Cathy Allen, an account representative at Kyrus, a Taylors, S.C.-based distributor and VAR of POS solutions for the retail market.
After waiting for lower price points and streamlined form factors to hit the market for handhelds, Electronics Boutique emerged as one of the first retailers to take on this type of application, said Allen.
Designed primarily as transaction software, the program developed by Kyrus also can be used for inventory receiving and check-in, said Allen.
The reseller plans to boost the application's capabilities by adding browser and messaging support, said Allen. Already, other retail clients await the deployment of Kyrus' software.
Before deploying the solution, Symbol's professional services team analyzed the needs of Electronics Boutique, examining the company's daily volume of credit-card transactions and customers, said Symbol's Ciervo.
"The number of our customers is increasing, but there is only so much business we can physically move through our 1,000-square-foot stores," said Levy. "Our priority has been to increase customer throughput at the point of sale, and this solution enables us to do that."
The retailer is deploying Symbol's POS solution at 30 of its stores to start, with plans to add locations over time.
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