Checkpoint Systems, a supplier of shrink management, merchandise visibility and apparel labeling solutions for the retail industry and its supply chain, announced that vitamin, mineral and herbal supplement retailer Holland & Barrett is rolling out Checkpoint’s Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS) system with fully integrated visitor counting at 135 stores in the UK. The system will allow the retailer to tackle theft and accurately measure customer throughput.
Checkpoint Systems, a supplier of shrink management, merchandise visibility and apparel labeling solutions for the retail industry and its supply chain, announced that vitamin, mineral and herbal supplement retailer Holland & Barrett is rolling out Checkpoint's Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS) system with fully integrated visitor counting at 135 stores in the UK. The system will allow the retailer to tackle theft and accurately measure customer throughput.
Holland & Barrett, NBTY Europe, which consists of Holland & Barrett, GNC, Natures Way, De Tuinen and Julian Graves and has more than 1000 stores across the UK, Ireland and Holland, initially elected to install Checkpoint Systems' visitor counting solution as a stand-alone system to monitor the sales effectiveness of its staff and gather quantified results from marketing campaigns. However, Holland and Barrett realized the additional benefits that an integrated EAS and visitor counting system could deliver, in terms of ROI for both the loss prevention department and the marketing and sales teams.
Jon Pilkington, Internal Audit Manager at Holland & Barrett, explained: “The results of the CheckCount trial were extremely positive and gave us access to detailed data that we needed in order to improve our sales techniques in individual stores, as well as gain a better understanding of the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. With ‘people-counting' technology we are able to measure which promotions get customers through the door.”
“We had initially approached Checkpoint solely about visitor counting,” Pilkington said. “After a limited initial trial of the solution, Checkpoint suggested we explore the new EAS system with a visitor counting solution integrated into the EAS pedestals. We previously had no EAS systems in our stores, so we were eager to see how they could reduce shrink and increase our average transaction value by allowing us to give customers open access to more of our products, knowing the products would now be secured from theft. The integrated solution provided us with the same accurate visitor counting data, but also helped us to reduce shrink. The EAS system was a perfect fit for us as it allowed us to solve two problems with one solution. As such we agreed to run a three-month trial of the integrated platform.”
The results of the trial convinced Holland & Barrett to roll out Checkpoint Systems' EAS system to tackle shrink, increase shelf availability, monitor customer throughput, improve store operations and ultimately enhance their bottom-line performance. The EAS antennas, integrated with Checkpoint's visitor counting solution, will be fitted at store entrances.
In addition, Holland & Barrett is using Checkpoint's Enhanced Performance (EP) labels with the surveillance system. The EP labels family includes labels that are significantly smaller in size, making them an excellent choice for small health and vitamin items, while actually enhancing detection performance and increasing the effectiveness of the system.
Pilkington said: “We agreed to an initial trial period of three months, and we were so impressed with the results that we decided to fully roll out the surveillance solution, incorporating visitor counting. The integrated systems' ability to monitor activity in-store, increase our average transaction value and secure our merchandise from theft, delivered a return on investment far more quickly than other systems.”
EAS' integrated visitor counting is powered by a bidirectional people counter housed right on the antenna that accurately measures the number of people entering and exiting a store. The system's built-in connectivity allows data to be automatically exported daily for detailed analysis and reporting. This helps retailers improve store operations and, when combined with PoS transactional data, understand their customer conversion rate.
Holland & Barrett also chose to integrate EAS compliance management tools into the system. Store staff members enter reasons for EAS activations into a small unit located near the store entrance/exit. This information is then uploaded to Checkpoint's Web-based reporting service, where retailers can remotely monitor and report on the reasons for EAS activations. The reports help the loss prevention department maximize the return on their EAS investment by allowing them to pinpoint operational issues and initiate corrective actions, and ensure that staff are actively engaged in the EAS programme.
Per Levin, worldwide President of Checkpoint's Shrink Management Solutions business, concluded: “We are pleased that we have been able to take Holland & Barrett into the loss prevention arena. Due to the recession, more and more retailers have started to look at visitor counting technology as a way of improving sales within their stores. Holland & Barrett is leading the way by introducing the solution that helps to reduce shrink, improve merchandise availability and leverage real-time data in ways never before possible.