Shoreline Snowboards - Stateline, NV
Snowboard store and Web sales pioneer, Shoreline Snowboards sells “brick-and-click,” that is, through two stores and a Web site. But Shoreline hit the wall when its aging retail system wouldn’t help staff cross-sell and refer customers between stores. Web customers complained when items they ordered were out of stock, and those sales falsely inflated sell-through and other reports, causing constant readjustments. Microsoft® Retail Management System now manages inventories with complete visibility. Using the very same database, NitroSell Commerce lets users publish or take products offline in seconds. Changing item descriptions, photos, and prices in the main system can change them on the Web site with a click. Details of Web sales drop painlessly into Microsoft Retail Management System to allow comprehensive visibility, reporting, and management. Now store and Web revenues soar.
Situation
Bob Daly founded the first Shoreline Snowboards in Stateline, Nevada, in 1985. Few had then heard of the sport and fewer bought its gear. No one envisioned snowboarding would become a worldwide sensation, joining the Winter Olympics in 1998 and spawning movies, television specials, and hundreds of competing stores and Web sites.
Today, Daly has stores in South Lake Tahoe, California, and Kingsbury Grade, Nevada, the first with about 5,500 square feet and the second with 4,000 square feet. In snowboard retailing, hard goods include boards, boots, and bindings. Soft goods are everything else, including layers of clothing, footwear, hats, helmets, gloves, goggles, backpacks, and accessories ranging from practical board leashes to fashionable sunglasses and watches. Snowboard stores carry mysterious products such as “impact shorts” and “stomp pads.” The former are rugged outer-shorts with impact-absorbing material sewn in to reduce injury. The latter help clean snow-packed boot soles.
Hot-selling brands include Burton, K2, Ride, Quicksilver, Pro-tec, Giro, Gnu, Lib Tech, Arnette, Dragon, and Von Zipper. Daly’s Tahoe store has won a Best of Tahoe award from the Tahoe Daily Tribune for several years.
Daly saw the Web’s potential early, starting an advertising site in 1997. As business grew, he saw Web sales could smooth out the peaks and valleys of a seasonally slippery sport.
A Bumpy Ride
David Militante, Shoreline’s IT Manager, reports, “Our older version of Retail Pro offered no way to connect two stores. That’s critical because we can’t profitably keep all possible items in each store; they have different demographics. We send customers from one store to the other all day long.”
Daly explains that expansion wasn’t a downhill run. “Shoreline got its reputation by putting customer service first. But when Web stockouts began disappointing too many online customers, I couldn’t make enough phone calls to smooth things out. Stockouts occurred because we divided our inventory unevenly between two stores, plus half for Web sales. So when we thought we had reserve products in the other inventory, we’d find both were zero. Worse, we could hit zero on Monday, but not catch it till Wednesday.”
Peaks and Valleys
Militante explains another facet. “Every retailer needs year-round revenue, and the Web is the way to produce it. Demand is heavy during winter and summer, so you need space to store and display tons of goods. Come fall and spring, you have to support that space on fewer walk-ins. You can have seasonal staff. But it’s hard to have seasonal buildings.”
Shoreline WebStore shoppers can drill down to exact items desired. Goggles were selected first, then the Dragon brand, then Dragon’s DXS models.
Daly foresaw that soft goods such as jackets, hoodies, hats, socks, gloves, backpacks, and accessories were his best candidates to pump up Web revenue. He brought in IT expertise and software to automate in-store operations and expand the site. Although both retail channels grew, unpredicted Web chores and difficulties began chewing up inordinate amounts of time and staff wages.
The Time-Sinks
“The hours it cost us then to run a growing Web store were unbelievable,” says Militante. “When you start a sales site, it looks doable. Then it hits you. The day-to-day reality is that you’re suddenly managing two businesses. Housekeeping in your virtual store is worse than in your real stores. Then we had to predict what to buy for each store plus Web site sales.”
In an industry where new products can come in a matrix of several designs, sizes, and colors, the staff time to enter, track, update, and remove inventory from a Web site can multiply with each season and new supplier.
Difficult Marketing
“Site maintenance gave us nonstop problems,” states Militante. “I spent most of my time changing buttons on Web pages, pasting in new text, marking items as sold out. We tweaked a hundred things a day. To change an item description, picture, or price on the Web, I had to look through the store’s database [and] then compare it to what the site said. Then our data in one database never matched the other. One price or description might get changed but not the other. And we were always overwriting each other’s work. Everyone knew these extra steps were avoidable—with the right products.
“The worst part was managing sales and marketing, which is the function you need most. You make the most new money by displaying more goods on the Web. But putting a new item into Web and store systems took 40 minutes. Every price change, newer picture, and better description was done twice.”
Painful Sales
“When a product’s out of stock, you should take it offline, but that’s another long series of steps retailers don’t always get to,” Militante says. “Then customers who ordered it get angry when you tell them you’re out. So our sales reports included undelivered sales that falsely inflated revenue numbers. You think your receipts are U.S.$5,000, but they’re $3,000.
“It gets worse. When you get real Web sales, they don’t slide into your main database. You must manually enter each new customer name, all the SKUs [stock-keeping units] they bought, and their prices into your store system. On top of everything, we had to run one whole season’s credit cards manually.”
Solution
Shoreline needed scalability plus complete data sharing among stores. The retailer examined five retail management solutions and found that, for its needs, most would require ongoing technical maintenance.
“The only solution that we found to give us the ease that we needed was Microsoft® Retail Management System,” Militante reports. “The one that came in second was incredibly expensive for no visible reason.”
Each Shoreline store uses Microsoft Retail Management System Store Operations, the store-level solution for small to very large stores. At user-defined times, Store Operations uploads its data to Microsoft Retail Management System Headquarters, the enterprise-level retail solution, for centralized chainwide visibility and management.
Headquarters can automatically download management’s updates—such as price changes, discount periods, new item descriptions, and photos—from corporate offices to stores. Changes can be specific to a single store, store groups, regions, or the entire chain. Updates can address product categories, items, departments, and other specifics. Users can specify dates that price changes switch on and off to start and end sales and specials.
A Tangled Web
But efforts to find a viable Web arm to match the integration capability that was in Microsoft Retail Management System hit a tree. Militante reports, “We tried to implement PDG Shopping Cart, but it was a nonstarter. It needed too many changes and had no connection between the store’s and the server’s database. We hadn’t solved our core problem.”
Shoreline’s IT staff was still up in the air. Daly and Militante began planning an in-house solution. Then NitroSell Commerce came on the scene.
“We Stomped It!”
In snowboarding, “stomping it” means nailing a perfect landing after a difficult trick.
Tom Keane, Founder and Business Development Director of NitroSell Ltd., of Cork, Ireland, with support offices in Boston and Phoenix, says, “NitroSell resolves the Web conundrum of every ambitious retailer: how to compete with big-block sites that advertise nationally. Their overhead is crushing; they get false starts. NitroSell is every store’s equalizer. Design your site, enter the data once, then send it to our hosted solution. All retail requires maintaining your changing customer and product data—but why do everything twice?”
“Shoreline has put together an ideal site for selling,” says Alex Bullock of The RSC Group of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, which provided NitroSell. “The site looks sharp, and they can switch things around in minutes.”
Militante says, “I can put 50 items online in 5 minutes and take another 50 offline just as fast. We don’t disappoint customers by displaying something we can’t deliver. Our sell-through reports are accurate because they only contain real sales, not attempts. The system manages tax problems we have buying and selling in two states, plus shipping anywhere.”
Benefits
“I have nothing but praise for [Microsoft Retail Management System] Headquarters and Store Operations,” Militante says. “They are the best. Combined with NitroSell, they give us instant marriage of the two stores’ data, then our Web site sales and records.”
“NitroSell keeps bringing new dollars in the door,” Militante reports, “because our entire inventory goes on the Web so fast and easily. Now, half our income is from Web sales. It was a huge boom during the Christmas season. And, in spring and fall, we reach the family going to South America to ski.”
New Dollars In
“NitroSell’s first victory was selling out this year’s backpack inventory before it arrived. We reordered in August—unheard of—and essentially we got two harvests!”
Daly adds, “August’s sell-through reports showed two jackets selling hard. We reordered heavy and cleaned out our vendor. It was the right prediction. We sold over twice as many as last year.”
IT staff can now Web-publish dozens of models of sunglasses in seconds.Last year, publishing these would have required hours of Web work.
“We’ve expanded tremendously,” Militante reports, “Without quoting dollars, we have to carry 30 percent more inventory to support new Web sales. For example, now we have 60 watches online—versus none last year—because I can add them so fast. Last year, we’d never have put up skateboards, balance boards, electric skateboards, and videos. Today, we can experiment with less risk. Last year, the hours necessary to add them to the site stopped us cold.”
Beyond Immediate New Cash
Daly says, “The biggest thing NitroSell did was restore our customer service and protect our reputation by making sure people receive what they order. With all inventory in one program, stockouts don’t hit us by surprise. Now my receiving department is also my Web-posting department. Once an item's data, pictures, and prices are in the store database, one more click puts it all on the Web. Anything but NitroSell is primitive.”
Militante follows up, “When we’re out of stock, the system says, ‘Availability unknown.’ That makes the phone ring. Then we can offer an upsell or substitute. Last year we had annoyed customers. This year, it’s upsells.”
“When Web posting was so laborious, we’d have long discussions about which products were worth posting. Now, the question becomes, ‘Why not put everything online for the world to see and buy?’”
Shorter Hours per Task
Militante asserts, “We can’t estimate the hundreds of hours we’ve saved in the few months we’ve had Microsoft Retail Management System plus NitroSell. We’ve regained at least 20 percent of our time in improved efficiency and productivity.
“NitroSell’s killer feature is the ability to dynamically change any price, any pictures, and descriptions, at will—in 60 seconds. When an item is out of stock, we find it in Microsoft Retail Management System—or in NitroSell’s Product Attribute Manager—and deselect it as a Web item. It’s off the site in minutes. I can start and end sales or closeouts at will.
“The three-way coupling between Microsoft Retail Management System, NitroSell, and the payment gateway is transparent. Even shipping has improved.”
Surprise Benefits
“We have time to manage the store better because we’re not wasting hours and hours on Web tasks,” Militante explains. “Last year, we ‘kinda’ took inventory. Now, we inventory one section a month. If someone misenters an item into the database, that’s really visible when it goes on the Web. It’s fast to fix, but it sure improves staff’s attention to detail.”
Daly found another benefit: “I get way more time to snowboard! Last year, I couldn’t get away. This year, I board when I want to, and even coach skiing at the high school.”
Coaching from a Retail Pro
Militante advises other retailers to start out with an existing Microsoft Retail Management System base. “Without Microsoft Retail Management System and NitroSell, you have to plan backwards—make your physical store conform to your Web tools. That’s just illogical and much harder. These two work together logically, your WebStore proceeding from the store database.”
He suggests finding out very early how your customers want to see, select, and sort the products they’re considering. “Then NitroSell will help you design your site’s logic to match your customers’ thinking,” he says.
“Understand that NitroSell’s offerings are a complete solution,” Militante emphasizes, “not just a Web tool. It’s your foundation, walls, and roof. You don’t need anything else to efficiently make and run a fast-selling site.
“And this product combination encourages bright ideas. We’re still improving our knowledge of these tools. Each day, we discover new tricks. Staff sees good ideas in the software, and we implement them. It’s all upside!”
Microsoft Business Solutions Retail Management System
Microsoft Business Solutions Retail Management System offers a complete store automation solution for small and medium-sized retailers, streamlining point-of-sale (POS), customer service, and store inventory management, and providing real-time access to key business metrics. Microsoft Retail Management System is a comprehensive solution for single-store and multi-store retailers that empowers independent proprietors, store managers, and cashiers through affordable and easy-to-use automation. Microsoft Retail Management System has the flexibility and scalability to grow with a retailer’s business.
For More Information
For more information about Microsoft RMS, Point-Of-Sales software and other hardware, call American Retail Supply Computer Solutions at 800-426-5708.