Sales Director, Alan Holcroft also picked up the "Best Salesperson" award for his impressive performance in 2011.

Managing Director, James Rodger, said "Winning awards like this shows that we as a company are moving in the right direction and doing the right things."

Alan Holcroft paid tribute to the team on receiving his award "In any company an individual award is always a result of a great team performance."

For the event Cegid asked James to take part in a video about why we partnered with them that you can watch below.

Roselle Rodger, Operations Manager said "The user groups are a great way to communicate with our customers and for them to talk to each other. We are always learning from the people that use our solutions and giving them the chance to share this knowledge between themselves will be of benefit to their business's"

You can request to join the main group HERE and once a member you can join the appropriate sub group.

If you have any questions you can call one of the team on 020 8605 9768

You can nominate the charity or charities to benefit from the majority of the donations, from local to national and 100% of the money raised goes to charity. 1.9 million donations have already been made via Pennies raising nearly £500,000 since launch in November 2010.  10 national retailers are now operating Pennies and many others are joining in.

Alan Holcroft, Sales Director at Retail IT said "Corporate social responsibility is a very broad concept that can be defined in many ways. For me, the underlying theme is to have a positive impact on society by managing our day to day business processes and its for this very reason that Retail IT support Pennies"

“With almost 2 million donations made, customers are embracing Pennies across a breadth of retail brands and together their Pennies have raised nearly £500K supporting many different UK charities. Independent research showed that more than three quarters of consumers enjoy the feel good factor of giving to charity and Pennies enables retailers to tap into this.”

Alison Hutchinson, CEO of The Pennies Foundation

For more information call Pennies on 020 7600 9286 or email info@pennies.org.uk

Registered Charity No. 1122489

Sadly we were so busy that not everyone who wanted to learn more about Yourcegid Retail were able to. If you were one of those people or you weren't able to come to the show you can click HERE or call the team on 020 8605 9768 or to arrange a free consultation.

The results are generated by readers of Drapers sending in nominations that the Drapers team then whittle down to a shortlist of 100. These 100 boutiques then rank each other  to get the final results.

We at Retail IT are proud to work with such forward thinking companies and look forward to helping them achieve even more in 2012.

See the full list HERE

Fast-growing British designer brand, Ted Baker, is rolling out new point-of-sale (PoS) and retail management software, Yourcegid Retail, to help support its expansion abroad.

For the full article click HERE

Here’s where you’ll see things like:

• The latest in web based retailing
• Cutting edge mobile point of sale
• Truly multi channel retail solutions
• How to gain a return on investment from our retail software solutions
• Any much more...

Of course, all are welcome to visit our stand and see the wares in action -- however, for a discussion on application, best practice and what this means for your business, book your space now.

Email marketing@retailit.com (or call 0208 605 9768) with your preferred time and we will do our best to accommodate you. Alternatively, if you are unable to attend the event but still would like to stay connected with the industry’s cutting edge, let us know and we will come and meet with you!



To register for the show please visit: www.retailbusinesstechnologyexpo.com

M-commerce grew extensively in 2010 and all signs point to this trend continuing in 2011. Companies that don’t act are likely to find themselves lacking a valuable growth opportunity once the mobile market matures.

How can retailers take advantage of Mobile Commerce?

• Build a fully mobile-optimised website. The retailer’s normal website must translate to a smaller mobile screen, with special care taken to reformat and promote product pictures. Opinion is divided, but it appears that the days of mobile-only websites that stand alone from ‘normal’ websites are limited as mobile browsers improve and consumers demand enhanced experiences on their smartphones and PDAs.
• Social content on the web or via iPhone and Android apps. It’s important to build areas where customers can share reviews, pictures and stories, as well as get more information and interact with brand both pre- and post-purchase. Retailers need to consider how to integrate mobile into each step of the purchase journey.
• Mobile ‘push’ marketing. With good CRM (at a minimum collecting customer data and histories, and segmenting customers appropriately) retailers can begin to push appropriate products, offers and vouchers to them based on their interests. The CRM part of this is crucial though – with it, you’re adding value, without it, it’s just spam.
• QR codes. In terms of facilitating consumer interaction with your brand from out-of-home and out-of-store environments, QR codes are an excellent vehicle to drive customers from offline to mobile engagement. Benefits are (1) accountability for offline advertising, (2) ability to get an opt-in to your CRM activities, (3) ability to drive consumers directly to offers and seamlessly link out-of-store and in-store experience (through reviews, mobile commerce shopping, etc).
• Mobile instore. Although the previous techniques have focused on the consumer’s mobile, there is benefit for the brand to run mobile applications: for instance, queue busting (using mobile devices to scan items for customers and hold sales until they reach a till to pay) and mobile transaction points (taking payment on the shop floor). This can be coupled with email receipt services like yReceipts to create an Apple store-like experience.

A strong mobile presence will helps to drive footfall in-store, enhances the retail experience, enables consumers to engage with and experience the brand out of store, and facilitates additional purchases and word of mouth beyond the retailer’s bricks-and-mortar environment. Acting sooner, as we have seen with the web, gives first-movers significant competitive advantage and solidifies positive brand perceptions.

Retail IT and Cegid are constantly innovating in this mobile space – Cegid continues to unveil new mobile, PDA and touchpad technology. We understand the need for strong CRM, and that’s why the CRM functionality in Cegid is simple to use, highly flexible, and second-to-none on features (and we're continuing to invest in developing even more CRM functionality via mobile). Call us on 020 8605 9768 for your free demo!

With the advent of New Media, the last ten years have seen small and mid-sized businesses able to suddenly access new markets in far corners of the world over the internet, and through global expansion - some very successfully indeed. At the same time, a number of other socio-economic factors, like free trade and increased cultural understanding (possibly in part due to new media!) have allowed offline globalisation: the openings of new stores in far-off markets, the sourcing of materials from other markets, and even exchange of skills across borders. At Retail IT, we have experienced all of the above firsthand with our customers.

International markets present challenges in various ways to retailers, as well as the very attractive opportunities we are aware of. For instance:

• 1. Language and Culture: When businesses begin to market across cultures, they frequently encounter linguistic problems. Translating product and company names can be difficult; translating advertising slogans can be downright impossible. Over the years, some of the largest and most marketing-savvy companies have made some of the biggest translation blunders.
  
  In the 1920s, when Coca-Cola was first translated phonetically into Chinese, the resultant phrase meant "bite the wax tadpole." Pepsi too had problems with Chinese when their slogan "Come Alive with the Pepsi Generation" was translated for a Taiwanese billboard as "Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the dead." Whilst KFC found that its "Finger-Lickin' Good" slogan was translated into Chinese as the admonition "Eat Your Fingers Off."
  
  Even when a translation is accurate, marketing can be undermined by local slang. For example, when Ford Motor Co. marketed the Pinto in Brazil, they discovered that "pinto" was Brazilian slang for "small penis." Naturally, no man wanted to own a "pinto," so Ford changed the car's name to Corcel, meaning the far more manly, "horse" in Portuguese. The car reportedly sold well after that.
  
  
• 2. Supply Network Dynamics: Perhaps the best known effect of internationalisation is that of new supply networks forming. No longer do firms compete directly against one another, but in fact so do their entire networks - and not simply supply chains as in the past, but many argue that given the multitude of options available and employed by modern suppliers, these chains are perhaps now more like spider webs, or networks. The challenge for the modern retailer then, is to determine which means of supply are going to be most profitable and otherwise beneficial to the firm, having weighed implications like: cost, brand impact, quality, lead times, relationships and responsiveness, tax / transfer pricing, and transportation considerations.
  
  One of the key challenges faced by retailers in emerging markets - where distances are great and infrastructure is still developing - is that of supply. Just-In-Time systems are rarely effective in these conditions, and so other factors become crucial, in particular, replenishment. In this milieu, it is crucial to have a very strong gauge of what product might sell at which volumes in each area, and to be able to maintain those stock levels accordingly, lest damaging sell-outs occur.
  
  
• 3. Regulatory Environment and Tax: Laws across countries differ. Sometimes it may be possible to clarify these in advance in a contract (which may not, however, be consistently enforced); at other times jurisdiction may be settled by treaties and broader documents and precedents. It is crucial to have an awareness of the idiosyncracies of law in countries retailers seek to expand into.
  
  Some legal systems, such as that of the U.S., are relatively “transparent”—that is, the law tends to be what its plain meaning would suggest. In some countries, however, there are laws on the books which are not enforced (e.g., although Japan has antitrust laws similar to those of the U.S., collusion is openly tolerated). Further, the amount of discretion left to government officials tends to vary. In Japan, through the doctrine of administrative guidance, great latitude is left to government officials, who effectively make up the laws.
  
  Varying tax codes and the challenge of selling different products at different rates in different regions to different clients can prove problematic, not on the more abstract compliance level, but also on the practical systems level.

There are no easy answers to internationalisation. Best practice requires rigorous research, and well-informed staff, as well as a dash of luck.

But there are some shortcuts that make it easier - like having local partners who understand the environment and who have navigated those challenges before. Having a partner whom you could consult at the drop of a hat on, say, how to deal with multiple tax rates in multiple countries at point of sale; or on how to smooth supply and replenishment issues in hard to reach parts of the world, is considered a major boon to most retailers, and a significant intangible asset in facilitating their expansion.

Retail IT works with UK retailers and helps them to co-ordinate and implement their expansion into foreign markets. We’re experts in retail, and our software solution, Yourcegid, has an extremely well developed and managed partner network across the globe to aid in your rollout, and to provide that local knowledge that no fact sheet can give you on a market.

(Add to that Cegid’s powerful international retailing system with: dynamic currency conversion, multiple tax codes, instant and automatic translation, fully real-time stock data across stores, subsidiary and advanced replenishment capabilities - and it’s clear why some of retail’s biggest names continue to choose Yourcegid retail solutions.)

• 1. Treat your customers differently on the basis of needs and value to the business.
• 2. Segment your customers according to their needs and profit potentials and tailor services to them.
• 3. To improve profit, consider charging premium prices for enhanced services offered valuable customers.
• 4. Consider offering self-service for less profitable customer segments.
• 5. Use humans to serve high-value customers, while using technology to serve less profitable ones – so long as it’s less expensive.
• 6. Analyse customer data at regular intervals to see who is moving up or down your value ladder.

How are you going to go about segmenting your customers and dealing with them individually? A CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system is a great way to do this. If it’s plugged into your Point Of Sale, you’ll get immediate data, and oftentimes data of a higher quality since more information is typically collected there. Some systems, like the Cegid Retail CRM Software will automatically capture that data, categorise it according to your rules, and action it into loyalty or promotions modules, as needs be.