[metropolis]

I have been looking for an upgrade to my exisiting POS System for the past number of months. After testing 30-40 systems I have narrowed it down to two, and I have a couple of questions about RetailEdge:

1. A customer has an open order in the system. The customer returns to make another purchase a few days later. Will the system inform the Store Clerk using the POS that there is an open order in the system? Is this possible?

2. Many of my customers pre-order or special order products weeks before they arrive. I am hoping to use the open order system to handle these pre or special orders. Will Retailedge be able to notify the Store Clerk that a pre or special order item has arrived when it is received into the inventory and tell them to contact the customer?

3. We currently use a stamp card for our customer loyalty system. We are looking for our new POS System to replace the stamp card. Currently, a customer receives 1 stamp for every $10 spent on regular priced items in the store (no stamps for items on sale). When they get 12 stamps they can use the card as store credit for $12. Or, they can hold the card until they get 24 Stamps and then get a store credit for $36. Basically, the more they hold the card the better value it will become. Is there a way I can set up RetailEdge to do something similar to this?

Thanks for your assistance.

Max

[RetailEdge Moderator]

Good questions but I am afraid we are not going to be able to help you with all of them.

1. Not directly. You would either have to make it a procedure to have the clerk press the F6 button on the sales screen when a customer comes in. This will open the Customer Manager where you can easily see that the customer has an open order. The active tab in the lower portion of the customer manager are memorized, so you could have the POS workstation setting remember that the Open Order tab is active. That way when you open the customer manager, the Open Orders are visible first.

Another way you could do it is use the customer notes field. Create a note like "Customer has an open order" and check the Notify on Sales Screen" box on the Customer Editor. Then when the customer is entered on the Sales Screen, the note will be automatically displayed.

2. The way that RetailEdge users create Special Orders are fairly varied. There is a procedure for doing this in the Program Help, and you can find this at http://www.retailedge.com/phpBB/viewtop ... f=4&t=1658. However, there is now way to actually Link the SO to the customer. The procedures you put in place and the naming conventions that you have for your POs would deal with this.

3. RetailEdge has a loyalty program built into it. It works as described here.

http://www.retailedge.com/phpBB/viewtop ... f=4&t=1659.

In your example you would be able to setup the loyalty program to issue $12.00 for every $120 spend. You can limit it to non discounted or some maximum discounted value items. There is no way to issue more loyalty $ based on how many loyalty $ they already have (which I think is what you are doing, e.g, if they have $12.00 of loyalty already and not spent, then the would get $24.00 for every $120 spent the next time). However loyalty $ can always be manually adjusted and applied on a per customer basis. Depending on how many customers get this additional discount this might be manageable.

In order for us to come up with feature that might address this scenario, I have a few questions:

1. You are incentivizing customers to come in and buy more but not to use their discount?
2. How long do you do this for? Do you cap it? If they hold on to the card even longer, do they get even more? First discount is 10%. Second time is 15% ($36/$240). Third discount is 20%?
3. What about the person who purchases $240 all at one time. Does he get the double disount?

From the customers perspective, I get a credit each time I come in. However, if I don't use my credit, I get more of a greater rate of credit on future purchases? I would be a little confused about this one in terms of a loyalty program. I can see it if you are issuing cards and the customer can see it in their wallet accumulating. But on a program basis I am not sure how effective this would be. As I mentioned above you can always manually enter a loyalty amount in a customers file. You might want to simply make it a policy that the customer would be issued extra $12 loyalty $ if they had 2 cards. Anyway let me know about this one.

These are good suggestions and I will add them to the list of suggestions for future releases.

[metropolis]

Thanks for responding. I'll look at your response more closely when I get the opportunity...most likely later this evening. In response to your questions regarding our Stamp Card Loyalty Program:

1. You are incentivizing customers to come in and buy more but not to use their discount?
Our Club Card was developed to unify what sort of discounts/store credits are given to all customers and on two different levels. Customers can opt to cash in their card when they have spent $120 (12 stamsp) and get $12 store credit. Or, they can spend $240 and get 24 stamps and receive a store credit of $36. This rewards customers who spend a little as well as a lot.
2. How long do you do this for? Do you cap it? If they hold on to the card even longer, do they get even more? First discount is 10%. Second time is 15% ($36/$240). Third discount is 20%?
There is no expiry date on the cards and the cards can be accumulated and saved for larger purchases. The maximum value of a card with 24 stamps is $36 worth of store credit (equal to 15% of total purchases).
3. What about the person who purchases $240 all at one time. Does he get the double disount?
A customer who spends $240 in the store would get 24 stamps on the card which is equal to $36 store credit towards their next purchase (if they choose to cash in the card at that time). The credit can't be used until the stamps have been acquired, so, like in the example above, they would receive the 24 stamps for the $240 they spent, but the stamps can not be used until their next purchase.

Clear as mud? It's easier explaining it in person....

[RetailEdge Moderator]

Makes sense thanks. In context of giving a bigger incentive for bigger spenders that makes more sense.

I still don't think there is any way to create overlapping loyalty $ values in the program.

The problem occurs because our loyalty program has carry overs for amounts spent previously. If you do a double batch in order to get the higher spending customers you get into a few funny problems with carry over.

To show you what problems this might lead to I have come up with the following example.

Month 1 (Exact Spending)

Customer 1 spends $120
Customer 2 spends $240

Batch 1 - $12/$120 spent
Customer 1 gets $12 LD and $0 carry over.
Customer 2 gets $24 LD and $0 carry over.

Batch 2 - $12/$240 spent
Customer 1 gets $0 LD additional ($120 carry over)
Customer 2 gets $12 LD that adds to the $24 already received for a total of $36.

Month 2 Customer 1 will get another $12.00 of loyalty for no spending getting them up to $24 LD.

So this seems to work for spending that exactly matches the batch dollar amounts.

To see if it works for partials

Month 1 (Partial Spending)

Customer 1 spends $60
Customer 2 spends $180

Batch 1 - $12/$120 spent
Customer 1 gets $0 LD and $60 carry over
Customer 2 gets $12 LD and $60 carry over

Batch 2 - $12/$240 spent
Customer 1 gets $0 LD ($60 carry over and another $60 for the batch = $120)
Customer 2 gets $12 LD ($60 carry over and another $180 = $240) and $0 carry over. So the total is $24 which is correct for the $120 spend, but in reality they should have $24 for the first $120 spent and $60 carry over for next month.

Next month without any spending, customer 1 gets $12 on the first batch. Which although is technically correct for the amount of spending, it should not have been issued because the spending is technically below the threshold of $120 to get loyalty $.

So you can see that the carry over can lead to some funny results if you are not careful.