Pennywise Transforms Their Retail Operations in Trinidad and Tobago
Implementing a centralized retail system for Trinidadians’ #1 shopping destination
Industry and Sector
Retail, Pharmacy
Country
Trinidad & Tobago
Organisation Size
700+
Back Office Users
10+
Point-of-Sale Devices
82+
Price Checkers
20+
Number of SKUs
40,000+
Pennywise, Davyn and LS Retail
Pennywise is a Trinidadian staple and the #1 shopping destination for health and beauty supplies. Since opening its first store in 1984, Pennywise has grown to eight stores and is the market leader in this segment, maintaining the widest range of products at the lowest prices.
With such growth in transaction volume, Pennywise invested and implemented a retail solution between 2011 and 2012. Unfortunately, the solution provider went out of business and they began to experience challenges with the system. In 2013, Pennywise engaged Davyn to implement LS Retail with Microsoft Dynamics NAV. The result was a robust retail system that connected all of their stores with head office, facilitating centralized management.
A New and Efficient Way Forward
After meeting with Davyn and having users participate in a product demonstration of the system, Pennywise was confident that the solution met all of their requirements. One of the most important factors was transaction speed. High volumes at the store, particularly during peak periods, prioritized quick transactions times to minimize customer wait. Connectivity was of equal importance; the system needed to operate over low bandwidth connections as reliably as possible.
The implementation began and was completed in four months. The first store went live on November 25th, 2013 and the last of eight stores was live by November 30th, 2013. After this successful go-live, transaction times were reviewed. Average transactions, including the processing time for cash or debit, ranged from 14 seconds for the purchase of a single item up to 1 minute and 10 seconds for 10 items.
Price Checkers
Pennywise prides itself on its customer service. After the initial implementation, they approached Davyn regarding the installation of in-store price checkers that could be used by employees and customers. A total of 20 devices were installed throughout Pennywise’s stores and at their central warehouse, all of them effectively connected to the LS Retail system.
Pharmacy
In 2015, Pennywise announced the decision to add pharmacies to three of their stores. Discussions with Davyn led them to LS Pharmacy. All functions could be delivered from a single system and the deployment could be managed locally by the Davyn team. The stores went live with the fully integrated pharmacy system in April 2016. Customers are able to fill prescriptions at the pharmacy counter where they are packaged and labelled with a barcode. Said barcode is scannable at the cashier and the transaction is completed.
About Microsoft Dynamics NAV and LS Retail
Microsoft Dynamics NAV is used by over 70,000 companies throughout the world and is supported by one of the largest software vendors in the industry. LS Retail is a leading Microsoft Partner and winner of numerous Microsoft awards including the 2015 Global Microsoft ISV of the Year. LS Retail has been installed in over 55,000 stores worldwide and is sold and supported by more than 200 certified partners across 120 countries.
Both Microsoft and LS Retail invest significantly in enhancing their products, and this roadmap of enhancements provides Pennywise with all they need to keep abreast of technological trends in the market.