Written by Erin Thayer, Point of Sale News 

Red Barn Feed & Supply Inc. serves Palm Beach County, located at the heart of a large equestrian area in Florida. Jerry and Betty Case established Red Barn in 1989, originally specializing in horse feed, hay and shavings. Now, as with many farm and feed stores across the nation, Red Barn has grown to provide anything a farmer or his animals might need. Red Barn sells feed, grooming, housing, and bedding products for practically any animal, including house pets, livestock, and exotic pets. They market a wide range of apparel for animal owners, including boots, jeans, shirts and accessories. Red Barn also provides fencing and lawn care products in their now 20,000 square foot retail space.

It is common for farming communities to rely heavily upon their local farm and feed store. For such a business, keeping up with the needs of the animal population and their owners is no easy task. A robust point of sale system suited to the needs of this niche business is central to success. When it comes to the day to day challenges that farm and feed stores face, there are some issues that any retailer must confront: controlling inventory, cash management, customer service, and payment processing. In addition to these common challenges, farm and feed stores like Red Barn have unique needs that require a special breed of POS.

Red Barn Feed & Supply recently upgraded their point of sale to POSexpress by POS Prophet Systems, a fully Red Barn Feed and Supply POSintegrated suite that manages their POS, inventory control, customer management, gift and loyalty, accounts receivable and financial reporting. This case study will demonstrate the ways that POSexpress meets the common demands of retail, as well as the specialized demands of a farm and feed store.

 There are five general ways that a farm and feed store such as Red Barn benefits from a well-designed POS system.

Inventory Control

For businesses such as Red Barn, tracking the thousands of unique products sold, without a POS system, would be time-consuming and tedious. The ability to bar code and scan bar coded items at the POS terminal streamlines the processes of checkout, shipment arrival, and physical inventory time. The reduction in error gives the store owner full control over those processes at all times.

Speed of Service

Attentive and efficient customer service is key. Especially during peak periods, getting customers through the checkout line quickly helps maintain the existing customer base and makes a good impression on new visitors. A POS system should provide enough speed and accuracy to produce transaction times of one to three seconds.

Customer Accounts Receivable

Many Farm and Feed stores like Red Barn extend special charging privileges to loyal customers and large farms. The ability to provide internal accounts receivable and invoicing allows for fast and efficient management of all accounts.

Cash Controls

A good POS system makes daily reconciliation a breeze. Integrated payment processing makes electronic payments error-free, and provides tools to reduce the risk of error for cash transactions. Security features are built in that promote the accountability of every operator and every transaction. Robust reports also help store owners quickly reconcile every till.

Accuracy/Efficiency

A well-designed point of sale system completely eliminates pricing errors. It also offers real time information so that purchasing and staffing decisions can be based on accurate POS data and intelligent analysis.

 In addition to these benefits, farm and feed supply stores such as Red Barn also require their POS to include several unique capabilities.

Integrate a hybrid merchant concept, that would support a mixture of scanned merchandise and services or weighed bulk material. The easy to use touch screen buttons and scale integration provided by POSexpress fulfilled this need.

Include customer tracking for tax exemptions, accounts receivable, transaction retrieval, and tiered pricing based on volume, frequency of visit, etc.

Sophisticated automation in the ordering process. As mentioned above, Red Barn's inventory includes equipment, supplies, feed, seed, apparel, pet supplies, décor, etc. The ability to monitor and re-stock such a massive array of inventory is necessary for maximizing the ROI on that inventory.

Provide internal communication capabilities. Similar to the way restaurants need to send orders to the back kitchen, a farm and feed store will often process orders at the front of the store (checkout station), while needing to fulfill that order from the back of the store (or the warehouse). POSexpress solves this problem by allowing remote printing to the warehouse, so Mr. Smith's order of horse feed can be ready to load on his truck by the time he finishes paying.

Strengthen external communication capabilities with email/SMS components, based on POS purchase history, to keep the client base informed and coming back to the store at the right time. Automated POS systems let feed store owners communicate with customers based on the topics and items in which they have already shown interest.

Red Barn's owner, Beck Hyslop, is pleased with the new POS system. He says, “One thing I've noticed [with POSexpress] is that it is easier to find information, like if I need to find a specific sale, then the new system makes that a lot easier.”

When asked what the most significant difference was for him, he replied, “To me, the most important thing is customer service. [With POS Prophet Systems] there is always someone there to help you out. You can call, and someone always answers. They will go in and look at the system with you and help you solve the problem.”

Following is a list of the specific POS software and hardware now being employed at Red Bard Feed & Supply.

 Software:

·POSexpress Version 3.0 provided by POS Prophet Systems. A fully integrated suite that manages their POS, Inventory Control, Customer Management, Gift & Loyalty, Accounts Receivable and Financial Reporting.

Hardware:

·Existing server provided and maintained by Jupiter Network Management.

· POS terminals are Aures Odysse II Touch Terminals with integrated MSR’s and Customer Displays running POSready 2009, 2 GB RAM

· Aures ODP-200 Thermal Receipt Printers

· Aures PS-50 POS Scanners

· Hypercom 5300 Signature Capture/PIN Pad devices

· Office PCs that utilize POS every day are also provided/maintained by Jupiter Networks. Some of them have Symbol LS series scanners attached to them for checking in inventory and selling product.