Hyde Hall's retail systems are blooming marvellous with K3

Didcot, 30^th September, 2009

The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), one of the world's leading horticultural organisations and the UK's leading gardening charity, has selected K3, the UK's largest provider of Microsoft Dynamics, to supply and implement its Retail System to manage the RHS's new gift shop at RHS Garden Hyde Hall, a 360 acre estate which attracts 130,000 visitors a year.

K3 has supplied the shop at Hyde Hall with a POS and a full retail solution, which includes ordering, stock management and back office.  There are three till lanes, and K3 is also supplying the Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) platform for the store.  The EFT solution will simplify Hyde Hall's communication infrastructure, and with more PCI compliance changes in the pipeline, Hyde Hall can rely on K3 to manage the whole process, saving the company the cost and worry of managing PCI compliance.

Catherine Smith, Retail Support Manager RHS Enterprises Ltd, said, "We've been working with K3 since 2003, when we implemented K3's retail solution at Rosemoor in North Devon. Before the implementation, Hyde Hall had been running a small and very successful shop, but we didn't have the IT infrastructure to allow us to implement our K3 EPOS solution there."

Hyde Hall had to rely on manual tills and a PDQ chip and pin terminal for credit cards.  This meant that sales information had to be manually entered into the existing Navision system.  When Hyde Hall took the decision to expand its shop, with a new build project, it was able to take the opportunity to restructure its IT platform.  Smith continued, "With the new larger shop opening, it was a natural move to implement K3's EPOS and retail system, bringing Hyde Hall in line with our other Shops and Plant centres at our Gardens in Wisley in Surrey, Harrogate in Yorkshire, Great Torrington in North Devon, and at major shows including the RHS Chelsea Flower Show."

Smith said, "We were fortunate that with a new build we could get on site before the opening, so it was a relatively easy installation.  Once the communication, networking and power were live it just took a couple of days to build the back office servers and links and set up the tills on site. We were then able to operate them live for a few days before opening to ensure full operational testing, a luxury we had not had in previous implementations."

Hyde Hall is already seeing benefits from the new system, including immediate visibility of sales during the day, including hourly sales trends, average transaction value, number of sales and number of items sold.  This enables sensible replenishment decisions based on the sales data, and a view of how much stock is available at any time.  Management will be able to benefit from being able to use existing reports to review Hyde Hall's performance, as it is fully integrated with the other retail stores, for both comparative and overall results."

John Little, Sales Director, K3, said, "The RHS has been a very loyal customer to K3 for a number of years, and its always gratifying to see them doing well and expanding their business.  This project is a great demonstration of the scalability of the K3 system - from managing single stores to multi-national operations."

About RHS

The RHS believes that gardening improves the quality of life and that everyone should have access to great garden experiences. As a charity we help to bring gardening into people's lives and support gardeners of all levels and abilities; whether they are expert horticulturists or children who are planting seeds for the very first time.

RHS membership is for anyone with an interest in gardening. Support the RHS and secure a healthy future for gardening. For more information call: 0845 130 4646, or visit http://www.rhs.org.uk/

About RHS Garden Hyde Hall

The glory of Hyde Hall lies in the 145ha (358 acres) estate within which the gardens sit: an undulating, man-made, agricultural landscape, the wide panorama of rolling arable fields, pasture and meadowland punctuated by copses and ancient woodland beneath open skies. This ‘broad landscape' feeling blends seamlessly with the 10ha (24.7 acres) garden, and defines the gardens at Hyde Hall as much as the gardens define themselves.

Sweeping views and panoramic vistas - reminiscent of 19th-century landscape paintings - are all the more dramatic when contrasted with the enclosed, and sheltered, hilltop gardens from which the views can be properly appreciated.

About K3

K3 deliver multi-channel solutions so that retailers can create joined up shopping experiences for their customers whether they choose to buy on-line, direct or in-store.

With more than 25 years experience in delivering business solutions, K3 have grown to become the UK's leading supplier of Microsoft Dynamics in retail. As a Gold Level Partner and invited member of Microsoft's Inner Circle, we offer a clearly defined roadmap and a product with a proven track record that is backed up by a $2 billion annual investment.

At K3 we use this in-depth experience of Microsoft and their applications to offer customers a first class service and deliver real benefits to their business.  For us, real success is not just on paper, it is reflected in our values, our processes and ultimately, it is reflected in your business.

Customers that have benefited from a K3 retail solution include:  Adidas, Alliance Boots, Agent Provocateur, American Golf, Booths Supermarkets, Carpetright, Clinton Cards, Dobbies Garden Centres, Dreams, Gamestation, GameStop, Jigsaw, Kiddicare, Leekes Department Stores, National Gallery, Rugby Football Union, Ryman the Stationers, Shoon, Smyths Toys and Space NK.

http://www.theretailpeople.com/

Laura Grocott

PR Contact

Fieldworks

Tel: 01435 873080

laura@fieldworksmarketing.co.uk

www.fieldworksmarketing.co.uk