Condor Ferries extends retail system

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Condor Ferries has extended its retail marketplace IT systems by implementing Torex Dynamic Retail System (DRS).

The system will include everything from head office to point-of-sale to restocking for the freight and passenger ferry firm, which operates between the UK, Channel Islands and France.

"This is unique in our portfolio in terms of the extended implementation," said Gordon Knowles, vice president of global solutions management.

The system means Condor will be better able to monitor and supply retail as well as hospitality requirements, restocking in different countries and using different currencies as required. Employees can use handheld devices to track inventory and POS operations now include chip-and-pin for security, said Torex president, Graeme Cooksley. It also includes a customer loyalty system and offers real-time inventory reports.

"Not having the goods customers want to hand not only impacts our bottom line, but has the potential to create a negative experience for our passengers," said Mark Kay, retail accountant for Condor Ferries.

Aside from making sales and tracking inventory, the integrated system lets Condor analyse its sales data in near real-time over the internet, in order to analyse data to improve their sales.

"With DRS and its real-time inventory reports, we will have a more accurate overview of our stock levels and sales strategies," said Kay.

"It's very important to have technology that can talk to each other," said Torex's Cooksley. "Data can be transferred by the day or hour... not at the end of the month."

Such an ability is important across the market, Cooksley said. "We're certainly seeing the quest for data being very important," he said. "Three to four years ago, it was about supply chain, now it's about [using data to] extract every dollar that customers can spend."

"It's about trying to maximise every single opportunity," Cooksley added. "It's all about the customer and customer experience."

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