Intelligent Retail Review - Running Pegasus Art
At Pegasus Art we are delighted that our home is the stunning Griffin Mill in Thrupp, Gloucestershire. Both Thrupp and Griffin Mill are steeped in history. Thrupp was a centre for textile weaving and cloth manufacture from the 14th century. There are records which indicate that there was a cloth mill at Thrupp as early as 1381. It was later expanded to feature flour mills and the Phoenix Iron Works which manufactured cloth-making machinery. It was here that machine worker John Lewis invented a new machine to sheer surplus fibres from cloth. The invention was later adapted by Edwin Beard Budding to become the first lawnmower.
With the construction of the Thames and Severn Canal and Brimscombe Port in 1789 the textile industry in Thrupp flourished and a number of woollen mills were built. Many of these have now been adapted for modern business use as has Griffin Mill which was founded in 1600 by the Griffin family for cloth making and which was subsequently used for furniture making.
So as you can see we are surrounded by history here and we have a beautiful home for our community where there is a wonderful atmosphere. We are proud that our community now includes artists and enthusiasts from far and wide, many of whom have found us through our website. We may occupy historic premises but we have had to move with the times and in the world of retail that means trading online which has presented us with a whole new set of challenges!
We now have as many as 7,000 products at Pegasus Art, most of which are available both in store and online. As you may know we are especially proud of our art papers and have an extensive collection including hard to source handmade papers. Listing products online can be time consuming and presents complications with stock control and so in order to streamline our operation and to be able to offer the level of service our customers expect, we needed the right systems in place. In the world of retail that means choosing the best EPoS (electronic point of sale) tills and software and we found what we were looking for in Connect from Intelligent Retail, which we're offering a review of here.
Review of Intelligent Retail EPoS
Connect is a user friendly premium, multichannel system for retailers. With Connect it is easy to upload our products and then to drag and drop them into our chosen sales channels. Real time stock adjustments and the innovative stock tree guarantee efficient stock control and the exceptional reporting capabilities of the system enable us to better understand who are customers are, what they like best, when they like to buy it and when we require more stock. In other words we can operate more efficiently which means that we have more time to serve and to get to know our customers.
It would be possible to run our business and maintain our current stock levels without the right EPoS Software but as out esteemed leader, Jane Fisher, recently commented
"Connect helps us sleep better!"
Connect also offers full integration with Amazon and this is a feature that we will be exploiting in the near future. Exposure via Amazon will help us to reach more customers and to spread the word about what we have to offer here at Pegasus.
Jane has been particularly impressed with the purchase order facility in Connect. This offers a quick and simple reorder process which recommends a re-order profile based on stock and sales analysis. She was also relieved to have found an organisation that could supply the complete retailer's support package. She recently commented that
"To move forward we required a new ecommerce website, a new till, EPoS software, technical support and SEO (search engine optimisation) services. We chose to work with Intelligent Retail because they could supply the equipment, software, services and support that we needed."
The Future
We can now look forward to an interesting future here at Pegasus Art. We are excited at the prospect of extending our community and serving more artists, enthusiasts and students at Griffin Mill and via our website. We do hope that you will be a part of our growing community!