BNG Technologies

Retailers in the sporting goods industry choose CounterPoint for specific features, including the ability to create special orders for custom items like rods and reels. Retailers also like CounterPoint’s flexibility to handle a wide variety of item types: apparel, snack bar, serial, etc.

Since some retailers use current year vendor model numbers for their inventory items, they want the ability to renumber items and still maintain histories for the next year’s purchasing. Serial number tracking is valuable to retailers who want to track certain big-ticket or regulated items. With this option, items such as golf carts, bicycles, and firearms can be sold by unique serial number. The serial number can be specified by the manufacturer or automatically generated by the system.

Other features that particularly attracted sporting goods retailers include:
• Ability to interface with FireWorks ATF bound book software
• Ability to put items on hold when they have service and repair work
• Ability to sell/take orders both through Order Entry and Point of Sale
• Ability to track returns by customer to identify problem customers
• Ability to track serialized inventory
• Accounting interface
• Automatic barcode printing from purchasing
• Control of employee actions
• Customer profiles for mailings
• Ease of tracking and reordering basic items by use of min/max levels
• Grids Inventory history and ability to set the views
• Inventory import through Data Interchange
• Kits (for skis, bicycles, etc.)
• Labels
• Layaways and orders on hold
• Local dealer
• Order Entry for catalog sales
• Oversize pricing
• P.O. on the Go
• Tracking of store credits, gift certificates, customer loyalty points, gift registry

How CounterPoint Makes Businesses More Profitable

Many of CounterPoint’s features can be used to increase profitability and eliminate errors, particularly from seasonal or part-time employees. The ability to barcode all items, including grid type items, has eliminated a lot of pricing errors. Similarly, integrated credit cards have eliminated processing mistakes.

Credit cards are also used to boost profitability because the ability to hold the line open for credit cards with the Modem Server option allows for much faster processing times.

Retailers use labels to retag everything in store with store’s name, price, and item barcode, and uses the notes feature to print the return policy on every receipt.

Sporting goods retailers want the ability to handle very large volume of sales. Still, they also want the ability to special order nonstocked items. That’s because they want to control their shrink as much as possible since they’re not a high-margin industry. Purchasing and inventory control to track movement of items from receiving through sales helps minimize stock shortage. And Item History and Purchasing Advice reports help retailers have the correct items in inventory at the right time.

The loose kits feature of CounterPoint prompts the salesperson to suggest a list of related items that could be purchased. For example, when a camping tent is sold, the system could prompt the salesperson to ask if a kerosene lantern or portable stove is also needed.

Retailers use Sales History, specifically monthly history and Sales Analysis reports, to see what items were purchased as compared to previous years, as well as ticket history to see what was purchased by a specific customer at any time.

Sporting goods retailers use CounterPoint to market to specific customers based on preferences, items (and/or categories) bought, and dollars spent. They use customer profile fields for mailings and customer tracking to send flyers after the season to try to move the extra inventory.

Other features used to increase profitability are:
• Ability to analyze profit margins
• Ability to do pick tickets with the items in bin sequence
• Ability to get stock status information daily
• Ability to issue store credit on returns
• Ability to spot-check inventories (to find employee theft)
• Ability to take inventory for selected items (especially items with high theft potential)
• Ability to track and report commissions
• Ability to track orders
• Accounts Receivable
• Barcodes
• Data Interchange (to import vendors’ pricing changes)
• Flexible sales history information (ability to create different views)
• Grids
• Handheld data collectors for physical inventory
• Hot/Cold Analysis report
• Inventory Management report
• Kits for skis
• Margin analysis
• Merchandising reports
• Multi-Site
• Non-inventory and service items (e.g., a bucket of range balls or green fees)
• Open to Buy
• Oversize pricing
• Price Pack
• Purchasing
• Purchasing Advice based on sell through
• Rental Option for ski rental
• Reporting
• Reports by salesperson and by season
• Serial and lot tracking
• SQL Connection Option (to show just what he sold out of today only)
• Stock status report
• Tracking of outstanding gift certificates
• Vendor item report for use at trade show

How CounterPoint is Suited for this Industry

CounterPoint’s features look and act like they were designed for the sporting goods industry. For example, retailers use serial numbers to track guns. They also track salespeople that move inventory between stores, getting better control over theft.

CounterPoint’s flexibility suits the sporting goods industry, since the system can handle hard goods, soft goods, shoes, serial numbers, and registries simultaneously. CounterPoint can handle high-end sporting equipment (e.g., golf clubs, bikes, exercise machines, etc.) that carry serial numbers and warranties.

CounterPoint has made determining reorder quantities very easy with min/max levels and Purchasing Advice reports.

Other features that are particularly suited for the sporting goods industry include:
• Barcodes
• Consolidated Grid report
• Customer history
• Gift certificates
• Grids for shoes and clothing
• Handheld data collectors for physical inventories
• Holds
• Inventory history and ability to set the views
• Labels for customer mailing
• Layaways and orders on hold
• Modem Server
• Multiple price levels (for retail/wholesale customer)
• Multi-Site
• Open to Buy
• Order Entry
• Point of Sale
• P.O. on the Go (for buying trips)
• Price Pack
• Purchase orders
• Purchasing
• Registries
• Sales Analysis by Category
• SQL Connection
• Special orders
• Specialized inventory
• Stock status
• Store credits
• Tracking of gift certificates, customer loyalty points, gift registry
• Transfers
• User-defined fields to track jersey numbers

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