Tag: POS solutions

Customer Success Stories: A Look Into How ETP’s POS Software Transformed Retail Businesses in India and the Philippines

Posted on by Omprasad Devadiga

The retail industry is constantly evolving. Customer expectations are higher than ever, demanding a seamless and efficient shopping experience across all channels. For retailers, keeping pace requires powerful tools to streamline operations, improve inventory management, and boost customer satisfaction.

ETP’s POS software is designed to be a transformation engine. We empower businesses of all sizes with a robust and user-friendly platform that goes beyond just processing transactions. In this blog series, we’ll delve into the real-world success stories of our customers, showcasing how ETP’s POS solutions have transformed their retail operations and taken their business to the next level. Get ready to be inspired by how ETP is shaping the future of retail, one success story at a time.

Success Story 1: Indian Fashion & Lifestyle Retailer

Background:

Established in 2006, it’s a pioneering fashion and lifestyle retailer running a bouquet of brands in India. The company forayed into the retail sector in 2000. With several path-breaking landmarks for Indian retail, the retailer pioneered the retail revolution in India and brought about a paradigm shift by redefining the shopping, recreation, and leisure experience.

The company’s multi-faceted retail addresses comprise shopping centers, premium malls, and super luxury malls, which have been delighting visitors with versatility, variety, and premium quality.

Business Needs:

  • Simple and easy-to-use system interface
  • Retail POS software integrated with CRM across all stores
  • Optimise business performance with tight control of back-end processes
  • Stock visibility and control across the retail stores and warehouses
  • Common Loyalty and CRM programs

Implementation:

ETP V5 Omni-Channel Retail Solutions were implemented, including ETP Store, ETP Accelerator, ETP Enterprise Application Server (EAS) and ETP Integrator.

Transformation:

When the luxury & lifestyle retailer adopted ETP’s POS software, it enabled one integrated system across different store formats and ensured a superior customer experience and faster checkouts. Moreover, with scalable solutions, opening new stores became a breeze. Consistent sales data was readily available at the head office thanks to timely synchronisation schedules, while centralised control of schemes and promotions enhanced operational efficiency.

ETP’s POS solution also offered faster time to market and centralised customer loyalty programs spanning across brands, including Auto Tier Upgrade. It ensured centralised validation of gift vouchers, credit notes, and sales returns, seamlessly integrating Point of Sale with gift card services. Additionally, the retail POS software supported accurate cash management at the stores, further streamlining their retail operations.

Here’s what our customer have to say about their experience with us:

“We were founded on a vision that seeks to usher in a better tomorrow by providing people with improved quality of life and living standards. We have endeavored to commit ourselves to providing comprehensive solutions to all our valued customers—solutions that combine high-end technology, design, and aesthetics and meet customer aspirations and expectations through superior standards of performance and service.”

— Chairman, Luxury & Lifestyle Retailer in India

Success Story 2: American Upscale Clothing Brand & Retailer (Philippines)

Background:

The first store was opened in Beverly Hills in 1981. The company was one of the first to create designer jeans for women, while men’s jeans debuted in 1983. A French national and a Filipino-Chinese resident brought it to the Philippines.

Initial Challenges:

  • Data sync between stores and head office
  • Unavailability of real-time inventory/stock information
  • Manual Gift card tracking
  • Manual promotions tracking
  • MS Excel usage for planning

Implementation:

ETP V5 Omni-Channel Retail Solutions

Transformation:

ETP’s point of sale software ensured near real-time data synchronisation, maintaining accurate inventory tallies between the head office and stores. It featured automatic gift card tracking and provided visibility into stock levels at other stores. The retail POS software also included an automatic promotions engine with intuitive performance tracking, which made it easy to monitor and optimise promotions. Customer registration at the store, whether for regular or loyal customers, was seamless. Additionally, the system is fully integrated with ERP and retail solutions, creating a comprehensive and efficient retail management system.

Success Story 3: India’s leading producer & retailer of jewelry, watches, and eyewear

Background:

The company commenced its operations in 1987 and is known for changing the face of the industry. It is also the 5th largest integrated (own-brand) manufacturer in the world.

Initial Challenges:

  • Lack of enhanced POS solutions integrated with enterprise CRM data
  • Lack of complete inventory control and visibility with real-time information
  • No database integration and automation

Implementation:

ETP V5 Omni-Channel Retail Solutions, including ETP Store as POS solutions, ETP Replication Store, ETP Enterprise Application Server (EAS), ETP Accelerator, ETP Supply Chain, ETP Reporter and ETP Integrator.

Transformation:

ETP’s POS software enabled ad hoc reporting across different group levels, reducing dependency on IT support staff. It automated data flow between stores and the head office, minimising billing time and improving customer service. The integrated CRM within the POS system allowed for customer profiling, delivering shopping experiences tailored to individual customers’ product, payment, and promotion preferences.

The POS solutions also enhanced demand management through intuitive features that considered customer buying behavior. It improved inventory, sales, and loyalty program management with real-time enterprise data. Additionally, the system supported adding employee and product KPIs, enabling target-oriented performance monitoring.

ETP’s retail POS software facilitated invoicing, advance order booking, and invoicing for better service to institutional customers. It managed franchise businesses with a single solution synced to different retail formats and ensured seamless integration with backend ERP for supply chain and merchandise management. The simple touch-screen user interface guaranteed faster scanning and billing, enhancing overall operational efficiency.

Here’s what our customers have to say about their experience with us:

“We have about 1000+ stores right now running on ETP POS Solutions, and I like that they are willing to understand the customer recommendation in-depth and deliver the same to the customer, overcoming existing problems.”

— Retail IT Head, Leading producer & retailer of jewelry, watches & eyewear in India

The success stories of retailers leveraging ETP’s POS solutions highlight the transformative power of an integrated, intuitive, and customer-centric retail solution. From faster checkouts and real-time data synchronisation to delivering shopping experiences tailored to individual customers’ product, payment, and promotion preferences, ETP’s retail POS software has proven to be a game-changer for businesses of all sizes.

If you’re ready to elevate your retail operations and achieve similar success, explore what ETP’s POS software can do for you.

Contact us today at etpgroup.com and start your journey toward a more efficient and profitable retail future.

Omni-channel success: Weaving omni-channel into the fabric of the retail organization

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Omni-channel success

As the systems and processes are in silos, it is very difficult for retail businesses to deliver a truly satisfying customer experience. Retailers need to rely not only on technology but also on processes to enable omni-channel. In the midst of this evolution, retailers cannot afford to sit back when it comes to transforming their business to omni-channel, as the technologies that were cutting-edge last year could be obsolete soon.

Instead of carrying on with ad hoc systems and processes, retailers need to adopt a holistic approach to make their business omni-channel. Regardless of the channel used by a shopper to make a purchase, retail systems and processes should enable a smooth transaction experience. In other words, the systems and processes must be well integrated to help retailers support a channel-agnostic order and experience.

Necessarily, retailers need to develop new techniques and processes in this new omni-channel world:

  • Having a single view of the customer across all channels to be able to offer timely and relevant promotions
  • Initiating the best possible omni-channel fulfillment decision intelligently, at the moment of the sale to make maximum profit
  • Planning for and managing inventory right and ensuring it is in the right place at the right time
  • Communicating the details of multiple shipments clearly when fulfilling a single order
  • Monitoring performance when shipping from a store, just as when shipping from a centralized warehouse

Needless to say, investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in technology that will be outdated in a year or two will be counter-productive for the business. Instead, retail owners must scale their investments and protect against obsolescence. Retailers require the ability to determine the technology that has a staying power when it comes to omni-channel, some of them being mobile POS, mobile wallet, omni-channel order management, queue busting and so on.

Payment Card Data Security At The Point-Of-Sale (POS)

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As retail businesses adopt more omni-channel retailing methods such as e-commerce, m-commerce, social selling, and mobile payments, standard online and mobile payment frauds also pose a problem, exposing confidential information and credit card data of the customers. Hence, businesses and governments are under increased pressure to prioritize data security. To address such issues related to financial data theft and hacking, the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) was formed on December 15, 2004, that released version 1.0 of the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), a proprietary information security standard for organizations to increase controls around cardholder data.

PCI DSS represents a minimum set of control objectives which may be enhanced by local, regional and sector laws and regulations. Additionally, legislation or regulatory requirements may require specific protection of personally identifiable information or other data elements (for example, cardholder name), or define an entity’s disclosure practices related to consumer information. Examples include legislation related to consumer data protection, privacy, identity theft, or data security.

The Payment Application Data Security Standard (PA-DSS) is a subset of the PCI DSS.  The PA-DSS applies to software vendors and others who develop payment applications that store, process, or transmit cardholder data as part of authorization or settlement, where these payment applications are sold, distributed, or licensed to third parties. In order to ensure that all sensitive cardholder authentication data is secure, PCI requires merchants, banks, and all other parties that use a third-party application for processing payments to select one that meets the PA-DSS standard.

The following chart details what is required to be PCI DSS compliant (and therefore what a payment application must support to facilitate a customer’s PCI DSS compliance).

ETP Blog-credit-card-data-security-at-the-point-of-sale

The ETP Store Omni-channel POS solution is certified as PA-DSS v3.2 compliant by the PCI SSC. It means that retailers can now feel more secure with the ETP V5.5 POS solutions to provide a secure payment card-related transaction process for their end users.

Being PCI DSS compliant means that, ETP V5 software does not retain, block or store and securely delete any sensitive payment card validation data, provides secure authentication features and facilitates secure remote access to the payment application while maintaining a log of all payment application activity. The PA-DSS certification for ETP V5 Suite is especially significant for customers of ETP Store (POS) and ETP MobileStore (Mobile POS) solution, as ETP V5 is one of very few retail software solutions to be PA-DSS compliant on the market.

“Keeping our customers secure and successful is the number one priority for ETP. We continually push beyond the ordinary and develop omni-channel retail software solutions with secure payment applications that protect wireless transmissions, facilitate secure network implementation and remote software updates and encrypt sensitive cardholder data over public networks,” said Naresh Ahuja, Chairman & CEO, ETP Group. “PA-DSS accreditation is by no means a simple task. However, by accomplishing it, we make it easier for our customers around the world to apply for PCI PA-DSS certification, where the use of compliant software solutions is a key element of demonstrating their ability to protect sensitive card data.”

For more information on ETP V5.5 Omni-channel POS solutions, click here.

Point-Of-Sale Security – How To Avert Retail Cyber Attacks

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ETP retail-pos

As point-of-sale systems adopt new-age Retail POS Software, retailers will have to brace themselves with the security threats that may come with it. Devices that handle credit and debit card information are at a constant threat from cybercriminals who want to steal such data.

New and emerging retail POS and Retail CRM Technologies are enabling retailers to exceed customer expectations. The customers in turn demand greater convenience and value. Greater convenience comes through greater connectivity between retailers and customers across multiple touchpoints be it channels, locations or devices. And such gratifying levels of connectivity offer convenience not only to consumers, but also to cybercriminals.

Lately, connected point-of-sale (POS) systems are being highly targeted by cybercriminals and specially-designed viruses for such purposes are further indication that all kinds of connected devices may be susceptible to attack now.

For more than 80,000 customers around the US who bought a $5 footlong sandwich at Subway, the second largest fast food chain with over 32,000 outlets in 90 different countries, it was a ticket to having their credit card data stolen by a band of Romanian hackers who later pled guilty to having stolen payment card data from the point-of-sale (POS) systems of hundreds of businesses, including more than 150 Subway restaurant franchises and at least 50 other retailers, using ‘sniffing’ software to make illicit charges. And those retailers made it possible by practically leaving their transaction information freely open to the Internet, letting the hackers ring up over $3 million, as mentioned in this article.

The cyber attacks on US retail giants Target, Neiman Marcus and Michaels Stores – which involved malware on POS systems – had a profound impact on sales and consumer confidence in the safety of credit-card information at retail POS terminals. Potential hauls for successful cybercriminals provide plenty of motivation to target POS.

“Retail cybercrime is the crime of the future,” says Dave Marcus, director of security and communications at security software firm McAfee. “Instead of coming in with guns and robbing the till, criminals can target businesses, root them from across the planet, and steal digitally.”

As retail businesses adopt more omni-channel retailing methods such as e-commerce, m-commerce, social selling, and mobile payments, standard online and mobile payment frauds also pose a problem, exposing confidential information and credit card data of the customers. This means that retailers could soon find themselves being attacked both online and on the high street.

Despite this worrying trend, by translating the same principles of security from the real world to the POS network, a security defence strategy can be put in place to prevent cyber criminals from gaining access to your sensitive, valuable data.

The ‘POS’tulates to be followed to avert cyber security attacks on retail POS system are:

• Create a response plan that will potentially address the incident of a cyber-attack. Test the execution of this response system on a periodic basis.

• Perform a thorough audit of data that is sensitive and confidential to keep a record of their storage locations on the network as well as their instances and volumes. This gives an understanding of where the valuable information is available.

• Get rid of any unauthorized instances of the sensitive data based on the company’s information governance policies, so that the exposure of such data is minimized.

• Create and regularly update standards of normal activity for each of their endpoints.

• Employ specialists who deal with information security to proactively fish out anomalies in real-time reports that are generated. These should be considered as signs indicating that the network’s security has been compromised and the attackers have access to the data.