Channons Country Store

In 2005, Martyn Channon rethought his IT requirements and implemented Trader to support his country store. Since then Trader has delivered positive effects to the management capabilities of the business as it has grown.

Background

For 14 years, Martyn Channon had used a Unix-based system with accounting and retail functionality in his East Sussex Country Store. Martyn was given the opportunity to rethink his IT requirement when the product came to end of life in 2005.

Martyn describes how he came to choose Trader™ and what positive effects this has brought to his business.

Time for Change

“We were recommended the Trader™ system after an initial investment in an alternative system was lost when the company went bust. After incurring a loss of investment we were extremely cautious about taking on a new system.”

Renewed Confidence

“After much independent research we were satisfied that Integrity Software offered the best fit for our business requirements. I was confident that Integrity Software is a stable company and one which would continue to develop Trader™ for the life of our investment.

I was impressed that Integrity’s sales approach was far more consultative than previously experienced. The level of understanding of our business needs and industry knowledge was far superior. The end result was driven by us rather than Integrity, so we could be sure that what we were getting was exactly what we needed to help us achieve our objectives.”

Business Advantage

“Moving to a Windows-based system with its added functionality coupled with its familiar look and feel and ease of use has led to increased efficiency and in turn profitability.

Trader™ offers bar-coding and EPOS functionality which gives us real time saving and customer service benefits. Trader™ has meant a huge reduction in administration across the board. 50% of our sales are credit card just one invoice per month to each of our account customers. One point of reference makes tracing payments easy, and has reduced the incidence of errors or misunderstanding.

We have over 6000 product lines, and ensuring that pricing was kept up-to-date protected was a Trader™, there mistakes made at point of sale as well as better customer service all round. We are now able to deliver consistent pricing and efficient service margins

Plans for the Future

“The number of industry-specific features in Trader is reassuring and shows that it has been designed with the needs of customers in mind. Our next project is to use the batch numbers facility to allow traceability of animal feed products. This will mean that in the event of anyproblems further down the line weare fully prepared to act accordingly.

Integrity are in regular contact and keep us informed as to the continuing development of the product. It’s an exciting time and I’m looking forward to the next big release of Trader™.”