BNG Technologies

Retailers in the apparel industry choose CounterPoint for specific features, the most important of which is CounterPoint’s grids that allows retailers to track the colors and sizes of a specific item, rather than a separate item number for each color and size. Retailers especially like the resulting reduction in data entry time and the ability to customize barcodes to reflect the exact size and color of an item in the matrix.



Retailers in this vertical are also attracted to CounterPoint’s ease of use. CounterPoint has a cleaner look than many industry-specific programs, as well as the capability to look up items multiple ways in the absence of a barcode. Retailers like the ease of looking up items and customers at point of sale and of entering layaways and updating deposits. They also like the ability to change a ticket over to a specific customer from a walk-in customer.

Retailers also choose CounterPoint for its ability to receive items directly into inventory from the warehouse. This allows items for multiple stores to be received and tagged at one location and then delivered to individual stores without having to receive and then transfer.

Apparel retailers also like having the ability to monitor employee actions by employing the clock-in/clock-out function and by using set-up controls for various functions (like reasons for returns, etc.). And they like having the ability to track commission by line item so that the appropriate salesperson gets credit for the sale and so returns are handled properly. For apparel Retailers, Open to Buy is an important tool for determining if they have the correct quantity of goods on hand and on order.

Other features that particularly attracted apparel retailers include:
• Ability to create special orders for items not stocked
• Ability to define custom label formats
• Ability to track store credits, gift certificates, customer loyalty points, gift registry, layaways, and orders
• Customer profiling (for improved customer service and marketing purposes)
• Daily Register Summary
• Email
• Merged Point of Sale for Multi-Site operations
• Oversize pricing (no oversize costing)
• P.O. on the Go
• Purchasing
• Receivables
• Rentals (tuxedos, etc.)
• Sales Analysis reports (for future buying)
• SQL Connection Option

How CounterPoint Makes Businesses More Profitable

The apparel industry is seasonal and trendy. It is unusual to reorder the same merchandise again because styles are always changing. CounterPoint’s numerous reports, graphs, and management features help identify trends, control cost, and enhance profitability. The Sales Analysis report helps retailers determine trends in clothing so the store is neither over- nor understocked. Similarly, retailers use the Hot/Cold Analysis report for determining reorder quantities and the Sales by Customer by Item report to produce a list of high-dollar buyers by vendor for phone invitation to trunk shows. (This works best if you are using the customer’s phone number as the customer number; otherwise the phone number does not print on the report.) The Consolidated Grid report allows retailers to analyze product mix and track inventory values.

Also very important are merchandising reports and Purchasing advice based on sell-through (days of supply and/or replenishment), especially the ability to select by class/season, etc. Since most soft goods are seasonal, a good system must have the ability to provide an analysis of sales versus receivings for a specified period of time. This information should be used to create planned markdowns well before the store is left with out-of-season merchandise.

Retailers use SQL Connection for many of their management reports, running daily reports to highlight inventory and cash flow information. They can also use SQL to create files to be sent to their vendors and to produce a mailing based on a customer’s past purchase of particular sizes of clothing that may currently be overstocked. A dealer should sell SQL with every system and/or create a package of SQL reports to be sold as an additional Dealer-supplied option.

Other features used to increase profitability are:
• Ability to enter markdowns by vendor, category, etc., with a future date
• Ability to track special orders, thereby enhancing better customer service
• Calculation of interest on A/R customers
• Current/Prior Year Analysis report
• Daily sales data
• Gift certificates
• Grids
• Kits
• Layaways
• Margin analysis
• Markdowns for end-of-season merchandise
• Modem Server for electronic draft capture
• Multi-Site (time-saving when tracking daily info in the remote stores)
• Offline Ticket Entry (for trunk shows)
• Open to Buy
• Oversize pricing for grid-type items
• Purchasing
• Sales history
• Speed of ticket entry
• Transfers

How CounterPoint is Suited for this Industry

CounterPoint looks and acts like it was designed for the apparel industry, most specifically for its grids, oversize pricing, Hot/Cold Analysis report, and Open to Buy planning.
In addition, markdowns are an important feature to this vertical market. The ability to do price overrides at the point of sale results in accurate profitability reporting while still allowing markdowns to be done on the floor. Percent discounts taken for the entire sale are allocated to category and item level so true profitability is reported. With coded costs, tags can include a hidden cost code to facilitate on-floor markdowns.

Other features that are particularly suited for the apparel industry include:
• Automatic generation of barcode labels on receiving or for Purchase Orders
• Barcoding and custom label design
• Customer profiles
• Data by salesperson
• Gift certificates
• Gift registries
• Kits
• Layaways
• Loyalty points
• Merchandising reports
• Modem Server
• Multi-Site polling
• Physical Count applications
• Purchasing
• Purchasing Advice reports
• Receiving and Open P.O. tracking and related information
• Sales ticket history
• SQL reports
• Store credits
• Store transfers

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