+ CASE STUDY
Goodwill Industries of
Southwest Oklahoma & North Texas

GSONT realizes a monthly revenue increase of $2,500 to $13,000 per store per month with Solutions DGR



Problem

Goodwill Industries of Southwest Oklahoma & North Texas (GSONT) was not looking for a Point of Sale System (POS). They had smart cash registers, they were happy, and they had not budgeted for a new system. They wrote: “…we are not looking for a POS system at this time. We can show and explain why it isn’t as prevalent with our operation.” But they still talked with Solutions ITW because they wanted to see what our Donated Goods Management System could do. They were curious about the value of barcoding and they requested a demonstration. They were concerned about efficiencies in their organization, particularly inventory tracking.

Alternatives

GSONT had a vision for operational efficiency.

Their CEO had executive experience in manufacturing. Their clients (participants) had limited time to apply color barbs and hang textiles. With limited resources and only 6-7 stores, efficiency was a major concern. An on site A/B test with their clients showed that processing barbs with barcodes could take twice as much time. Would a barcoding implementation have a decent return on investment (ROI)? In addition, they wanted speedier checkout for their customers, and they needed better processing of discounts and sales (like their buy-one-get-one sale). They believed that increased efficiency, coupled with locking down of prices and discounts, could bring a sufficient ROI. They also envisioned RFID inventory tracking.

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Solution



GSONT planned on implementing Solutions DGR at all of their locations.

To reduce hardware and labor costs, their vision was to process production barcodes for all locations through the production areas of only three of their stores. The other stores would receive their barcodes from these three production areas. They wanted barcoding for all items as well as scanning at POS with discount and sale automation. They were counting on price lockdown at the point of sale. GSONT also wanted customized centralized reporting to replace their smart cash registers.

employee using a point of sale system
employee using a point of sale system
employee using a point of sale system

Implementation

The Solutions DGR system for Goodwill Industries of Southwest Oklahoma & North Texas was designed and configured over several weeks with close communication between the Solutions ITW and GSONT teams. When the Solutions ITW team arrived, we set up our system in the pilot store the day before going live. After training, the Goodwill clients were up and running on Solutions DGR Production all by themselves the next day. The team at the pilot location was zealous, innovative, and efficient! They acclimated quickly.

The implementation went so well that within a week GSONT asked for a quote to implement Solutions DGR Production barcoding in all locations.

After taking a few weeks to label all of the goods in the pilot store, the Solutions ITW team returned on site to implement Solutions DGR POS following the standard protocol: arrive on day, set up, train the next morning, let go, and watch the Goodwill partner succeed. After training for about an hour, the Solutions ITW trainer was “hanging out” most of the day waiting for questions.

When the time came to close out the first drawer for the first day—from cash registers to Solutions DGR POS “blind closing”—they were thrilled to reconcile to the penny the very first time they ran the closing routine. Handshakes, high-fives and low-fives were all around! We wish we had better pictures of the delight on the Goodwill partner’s faces from production to POS at this pilot location. You just can’t stage this kind of positive energy.

They were running all by themselves the second day. Our trainer left the store and went to the corporate office to help with reporting.

The system has made life easier for the cashiers because the system handles everything for them. It automatically calculates the discounts…our sales are consistently up 3%-5% month over month since we implemented the system.

+ Rocky Goforth, CFO & VP of Finance

employee using a point of sale system
employee using a point of sale system
employee using a point of sale system
Average Transactions for Months Implemented
graph of GSONT month avgerages

Results

The average transaction in the first three stores implemented increased by $0.47 to $1.01 in the first four months of operation. The first store implemented experienced an average sale increase of $1.50 after five months! Given the volume in these stores, GSONT has realized a monthly revenue increase of $2,500 to $13,000 per store per month (depending on store size and efficiency improvement).

Tim Sammons, Vice President of Retail/Warehouse Operations, said, “We have seen a BIG increase in our cash donations, as the cashier is prompted to ask each customer to round up.”

What is the efficiency improvement? Every item sells for the price marked, and discounts can only be applied according to predetermined guidelines (discounts can no longer be “stacked”).

We have seen an increase in average transaction in every store after implementing the POS.

Tim Sammons, VP of Retail/Warehouse Operations

Average Transactions for Months Implemented
graph of GSONT month avgerages
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