What clients say about NedFox

NedFox caught up with Matthew Steel, manager of Taverham Garden Centre and Nursery 4 years after they originally started using our ePOS solution, RetailVista. Read on to see how they are getting along…

August 2019 – Interview with Matthew Steel, Manager Taverham Garden Centre, who took on NedFox ePOS in the spring of 2015, with 8 check-outs and 4 PDA’s.

Q – Now you have your 4^th spring season behind you, after implementation of the NedFox ePOS solution RetailVista, what are your thoughts and experiences to date and have your expectations been fulfilled?

A – After 4 years a lot has changed within the business and our requirements for the EPOS system have changed with it. NedFox have been able to accommodate these changes by adding some additional modules and updating others.  My expectations have been met and I am confident that the system will continue to meet my future requirements.

Q – When we asked you for your comments 4-years ago, you listed being ‘cloud-based’ as one of the main reasons that you chose NedFox over several other providers. Has this proved to be a correct assessment?

A – It has proved to be correct; I am able to log on to RV and access all data, process orders etc from anywhere. Keeping me in touch with the business at all times. It makes it easy to process orders, check existing stock levels, sales and product statistics, when visiting suppliers and saves the need to carry reams of paperwork with you.

Q – Other than the improved stock control from anywhere, what have been the greatest advantages of moving into ‘The Cloud’?

A – No worry about a server or hardware failure or loss of data, as this is all stored and backed-up remotely.

Q – Have you been able to integrate your e-marketing or loyalty scheme and has this influenced the (cost) effectiveness?

A – From the outset we integrated our loyalty scheme and gift cards with RV and also our website. This enables us to carry out all e marketing simply and very cost effectively. We have also just incorporated the HTA gift card scheme with RV, enabling us to sell and receive HTA gift cards as well as the paper vouchers.

Q – How about integrated, online sales?

A – We have not yet implemented online sales. We are using the warehouse module, which enables us to link our shop and warehouse stock to our website, which was updated this year to allow us to sell online. We are however still undecided if this is the right move for us at the moment. Ask me again next year.

Q – What about your staff – are they fully behind the changes that you introduced?

A – As with all staff, they were a little slow to accept changes however, as they used the system they soon adapted to the new system and are now reaping the benefits of the system. Even the most reluctant have slowly been converted!

Q – Would you recommend NedFox to other retailers?

A – Yes

Carpenders Park Garden Centre joins NedFox’ cloud based ePOS revolution

Situated on the outskirts of Watford – West London, Carpenders Park Garden Centre was established over 20 years ago, originally growing and selling shrubs and perennials through a small retail shop. Always innovating, they have now grown and adapted much of the site to accommodate 5 checkouts, a large plants area, furniture & BBQs, all the normal sundries you would expect and a beautiful, recently opened 100 seater restaurant (that from experience does a GREAT jacket potato and chilli!).

Recently, they realised that their old, server-based ePOS system was unable to keep up with today’s fast changing retail environment and that a completely integrated and omnichannel solution was needed, not only to keep pace, but to stay ahead of the game, increase efficiency and exceed customer expectations.

Manager, Riaz Bharmal, is really happy to be working with NedFox saying;

“We felt our existing solution was no longer right for us. We were spending less and less time on the shop floor, and the end of day procedures and back up routines were really hurting us due to the amount of time it took. Both of these problems are now solved with NedFox’ cloud-based ePOS solution; RetailVista. As it is cloud based and completely real-time, I no longer have any lengthy end of day procedures other than simply cashing up, and the cloud based nature of it means I can work from the shop floor, home, or anywhere in the world from my phone or tablet.”

Merryhatton Garden Centre is East Lothian’s longest established garden centre and a favourite for all generations of customer. It is open 7 days a week and conveniently located minutes from the A1. It is the perfect destination for a day trip, to meet friends, grab some lunch at the Merryhatton Café, or just a quick pop in for some essentials. RetailVista has been operating the shop and café tills since January 2019.

NedFox (NF): Hi Helen, Can you tell me a little bit about yourself and the garden centre?
Helen (H): Hi NedFox! I took the garden centre on in 1997 and it was a little run down. I have been building it up now for 21 years and continue to modernise. We took on our first ePOS system in 2010 but we realised soon after that we were going to out-grow it quickly. In particular I found that I was unable to pass on certain responsibilities to my staff so a lot of the day to day processes were on my shoulders.

NF: So how did you hear about NedFox?
H: NedFox are one of the recommended ePOS suppliers from the HTA. I investigated and spoke to several of the recommended suppliers but either found them to be quite pushy with their sales process or too expensive. Which led me to pop on to the NedFox stand at the GLEE 2018 tradeshow. And I am glad I did! I genuinely found NedFox approachable and easy to talk to. They understood the problems I was having and made sure I understood just how they could help and their softer sales pitches resonated with me. Their software impressed me and it felt good.

NF: What happened next?
H: NedFox suggested I speak to some of their other customers which I did. I contacted Thirsk Garden Centre and found that they were really happy with the system which gave me further confidence in how they could help me. It was very shortly after my conversation with Thirsk Garden Centre that I decided I was going to choose NedFox as my supplier.

NF: How did you find the installation process?
H: I needed something quickly as I had failures occurring with my existing till hardware. From speaking with NedFox at GLEE it took just 6 weeks to get up and running as they responded really fast to my enquiry. That included a conversion of my data from the older system. One of the things that stopped me changing ePOS sooner was that I was convinced it would be a lot of hassle to switch systems. But it was nowhere near as daunting as I thought it would be, NedFox changed my perceptions and I was delighted with it. It really wasn’t so much work.

NF: How are you finding the day to day operations now with RetailVista?
H: It has really helped me as a business owner. Previously, as I said, many responsibilities were on my shoulders. Now, I can delegate job responsibility to a member of staff and trust that RetailVista is user friendly enough for my staff to do the job independently of me. The PDA (RetailVista mobile) is great as I have a member of staff on the shop floor using it to print labels, take responsibility for goods in and carry out rotational stock checks. All data, information and changes on the PDA is immediately on the screen, and in the back office. My staff and I have found the system really easy to use and work with. It was important to me that I chose a system that was capable of performing the jobs I need it to, but also be straight forward to use. And I am happy to say I found this with NedFox!

NF: So what could be next for the NedFox and Merryhatton partnership?
H: I like the idea of customers registering their loyalty cards online and being able to view loyalty balances and sales history, I think that could make our loyalty registration smoother and save a little time. I would also like to have RetailVista Mobile on one of our phones for just a few £ per month to give us a little more ePOS power on the shop floor.

NF: Thanks Helen. Good luck with everything and we wish you a great season!

Mr. Michele Gaudelli, the IT Manager and one of the directors of Aylings Garden Centre & Club Green sent the e-mail below to NedFox without any modifications done by NedFox:

I just wanted to drop you an email to say a big thank you to the NedFox team for helping us set up our Epos system in such a short space of time.

As you know we went through a selection process where we invited in a number Epos suppliers in, which ranged from Cloud based solutions like RetailVista to Server based solutions.

The first decision we had to make was – do we go for a cloud based solution or server a based solution.

We chose the cloud as we wanted to have a system available to us via a web browser anywhere any time! Allowing us to view real-time trading information from any location!

The selection process was interesting, as it gave us an insight into how the different systems worked, and I have to say that RetailVista was the most intuitive and easy to use system we saw.

As well as having a great system, NedFox also showed that they had a wealth of knowledge and experience in the Garden Centre sector, which they were willing to share with us to ensure we launched our new Garden Centre (Aylings Garden Centre) successfully. This was one of the main reasons why we decided to partner with NedFox.

For us choosing the right partner was more important than making a price led decision. NedFox were not the cheapest solution, but you get what you pay for!  A job very well done!

NedFox worked very closely with us throughout the implementation of the Epos system, helping with us with all aspects including the supplier product imports.

Now that the system is in, we are so pleased that we chose to work with the NedFox solution as we can now access the system from any location and get real-time information on how the Garden Centre is performing!

A big thank you to Martin Tank, Fons Werink and Eimert De Graaff from NedFox, who have been our main contacts throughout this process and fantastic people to work with. They were always on hand to provide us with the necessary support! And are now an extension of the Aylings Garden Centre family!

Thanks again

Kind regards

Michele

Why ePOS?

We were operating a manual system before. We had little control of our stock and unable to monitor our losses. We needed a system which would allow us to optimise our stock levels, assess our losses and accurately monitor our seasonal sales. We needed to be able to access all data on site, and remotely.

Why NedFox?

NedFox offered a fully cloud based system, which could be logged onto from any location. All updates and software issues are carried out remotely. NedFox offered a future proof system which met all our requirements. They were able to guide us and our staff through the process of changing from a fully manual, paper system to a full EPOS system. Their system links up with our website and loyalty scheme, offering a one stop solution for all our needs.

What next?

At present we are still implementing our warehouse module. When this is completed and we are fully conversant with it, we may look at an online shop.

Any regrets?

No, we are happy with our choice of supplier. One of our initial concerns with selecting NedFox was that, they were a Dutch company based in the Nederland’s. There could have been language or geographical difficulties. This has not been a problem whatsoever. All support staff speak English and as it is a cloud based system it can be accessed remotely and any issues resolved. All training was either carried out here on site or online.

Any further comments?

We are now nearing the end of our implementation of the new EPOS system and are very happy with the end product. NedFox have adapted the existing system through updates to leave us with a system which is customised to suit our our own particular requirements.

Spring 2015 – Installation 8-till system:
Modules include:
Labelling, Statistics, Delivery on Account, Sales on Account, Invoicing, Sage Accounts Integration, Loyalty Scheme, National and Own Gift Cards, Purchase Orders, Sales Orders, Warehouse Location, Goods-In and Excel Interface. Also included – 4 PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) hand-held computers.

http://www.taverhamnursery.co.uk/

Why did you change you current provider? 

We had been struggling for some time with our ePOS provider, not knowing exactly what we were paying for and having to pay licence fees per user as well as per work station. When we wanted to expand our loyalty scheme we came across other issues and we felt the time had come for a proper upgrade. We were also thinking about online selling via our website and when we learned about the benefits of the NedFox Cloud Solution it became a ‘no-brainer’.

Why NedFox?

As I said, the ability to integrate fully our loyalty scheme and webshop, and for no more cost than we were paying our old company made this an easy decision. The fact that we would be working with people from the trade we knew and trusted, was also an important factor.

What next?

We still have some work to do on our webshop and also feel that the new Personal Marketing service from Garden Connect has a lot to offer and enable us to reduce the cost of our loyalty scheme rewards.

Any further comments?

It took us a while to get used to the new system but once we got the hang of it, we never looked back. It is also good to know that whatever new concepts the ‘marketing-people’ come up with, we should be able to use now. NedFox is a great company and we would thoroughly recommend them to anyone looking to upgrade their old system.

www.thirskgardencentre.co.uk

Why NedFox?

In short: easy to use, easy and quick to download products with excel interface and very competitively priced. There are lots of additional modules available, good backup call-centre, remote access from any device and windows based system.

Any further comments?

A very approachable and genuine company from the first meeting to the present moment. They have stood by every promise they have made.

Why ePOS?

For us at Radway Bridge is was important to make less pricing mistakes, easier for seasonal till operatives, more accurate and live stock-control. There is better wastage control, management statistics and increased profit!

What next for Radway Bridge Garden Centre?

Electronic purchasing, website interface, another till, another hand held PDA.

Installation 2-till system – Spring 2015

Modules include:
Labelling, Statistics, Delivery on Account, Invoicing, Loyalty Scheme, Gift Cards, Purchase Orders, Goods In, Webshop Interface and Excel Interface. Also included – 1 PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) hand-held computer.

www.radwaybridgegardencentre.com

Why NedFox?

For Everton, there were a number of companies to choose from but we particularly liked the idea of having a cloud-based solution that would fully integrate with our existing loyalty providers – we have not been disappointed!

Why ePOS?

We knew that the garden centre had grown to a size that we needed to keep a closer watch on our margins and reduce our stock levels. At the same time our loyalty scheme had grown to over 5,000 members and we needed a more efficient way to interact with our customers. Another reason is that we wanted to give the customer a detailed receipt of their purchases and show a more professional image in that respect.

Any regrets?

None at all, other than perhaps that we should have done this years ago. We have no servers in the back office any longer, no worries about back-up’s and access to the system from home or even on our holidays, if we want to. We have no doubt that NedFox will become the leading garden centre EPOS providers in the UK and we are glad that we were part of it, right from the start.

What next for Everton Garden Centre?

Personalised Marketing, the way the supermarkets do it, will be a far more cost effective way to maximise customer retention and enable us to move away from giving points on all purchases and even increasing their reward perception. Our cloud-based system enables us to do this seamlessly.

April 2013 – Installation 4-till system, including restaurant:
Modules include:
Catering, Labelling, Statistics, Delivery on Account, Invoicing, Loyalty Scheme, Purchases Ordering, Goods-In, Accounting Exports (Sage) and Excel Interface. Also 2 PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) hand-held computers.