Grandiflora improves stock control with SaleAbility

Grandiflora, a subsidiary of Multiflora, the flower auction house, has installed SaleAbility from JSE-listed Ixchange as its retail management solution. SaleAbility is part of ABILITY, Ixchange`s specialist supply chain management suite.

Grandiflora is a R16-million-a-year retailer/wholesaler of florists` requisites, and wedding and bridal accessories. It also supplies specialist flower-growers` requisites to the local flower-farming community.

The deal includes the supply of point-of-sale PC-based hardware, a barcoding printer, portable scanners and POS scanners, back-office terminals, the SaleAbility software and a Windows NT network.

"The main reason we have implemented SaleAbility is to maintain better control over our stockholding," says Grandiflora manager Vic Lemme. "The business information SaleAbility provides will enable us to reduce our stockholding and improve our buying and marketing activities," he says. Grandiflora stocks more than 12 000 different line items ranging from silk flowers, bowls, vases, oases and ribbons, through to table cloths, flower stands and candles, to fertilisers, plastic hothouse covers and flower packaging material.

Prior to the installation of SaleAbility, the store operated a manual system with only the farmers` debtors on computer. With the implementation of SaleAbility, Grandiflora has appointed two new staff members, a stock controller and a data capture clerk to ensure the success of the system.

"SaleAbility will help Grandiflora achieve this as it is an integrated retail system," says Johan Buys, director of Ixchange`s EMS (Enterprise Management Solutions) division. "Because goods received are entered into and barcoded by the system on arrival at the store, the system reflects exactly what is in stock at any time. Once the goods are bought, scanners at the till points automatically read the barcodes and list the items as sold. As a result, management can draw reports at any time to establish the rate of sale of any item or group of items. This allows buyers to see which items are popular and which are slow movers."

Some challenges during the implementation of the system included the lack of manufacturers` barcodes on more than 50% of the stock items due to the type of merchandise stocked. "We solved this by creating our own barcodes for those products," says Lemmer.

In addition, stick-on barcode labels don`t work very well for products such as silk and dried flowers, so special dumb-bell barcode labels were sourced, he adds.

Customisation to meet Grandiflora`s operating needs included an interface to the debtors and creditors system at Multiflora; and the facilitation of a hiring system for the bridal department.