Sorcing the ideal EPOS solution

This article is brought to you by Retail Technology Review: Sorcing the ideal EPOS solution.

Opening the first market of its kind in a British train station Sourced Market has opened its first permanent market inside St Pancras International. They have implemented VPoS, an Electronic Point of Sale (EPoS) system from VoiteQ to sell their locally sourced, seasonal produce, bringing the market experience to the city train station.

Sourced Market is working with some fantastic small producers to bring a range of carefully sourced produce to the heart of the city including, artisan bread baked fresh each day from Flour Power City and Flour Station, organic meat from Laverstoke Park Farm, sustainably caught fish from Jeffersons in Cornwall, seasonal fruit and vegetables locally sourced wherever possible, a cheese and charcuterie counter featuring cheese from Neal's Yard, dairy and charcuterie from Brindisa and Gastronomica, a wide selection of British beer, wine carefully sourced from small producers available to take home or by the glass and Monmouth coffee roasted in London.

Sourced Market has now implemented VoiteQs CentriQ Business Management System enabling them to manage the store and their large range of products from the head office, along with the VPoS point of sale application at the St Pancras store, running the solution on new touchscreen tills. The fully integrated end-to-end VoiteQ system will provide Sourced Market with central control of all pricing, promotions and range, as well as giving greater visibility of stock in store and overall stock holding. It will, in addition, provide valuable information and central control on the selling patterns of different products and greater control of cash and banking information.

The complex nature of the station brought with it some challenges for both the design of the new store and the IT infrastructure. Sourced Market has two retail units either side of a fire exit from the Eurostar, the IT for these two units needed to be connected to run as one store; however this had to be achieved without damaging the integrity and safety of the building. VoiteQ therefore had to utilise the existing IT infrastructure to connect the two units, running information via the existing communication room.

Ben OBrien, Managing Director of Sourced Market comments, As a start up business, breaking new retail ground, we needed to make sure that we used both our own and our suppliers knowledge and experience to make this venture a success. VoiteQs background in retail meant that they could provide us with not only an IT solution, but could also give us the benefit of their retail experience.

The VoiteQ systems are all of Open database design which enables them to be linked easily to other applications. They all run on any current Windows platform and have intuitive user friendly design. VPoS has a proven track record having been in constant use and under continued development for almost 20 years. Users are also able to diversify their business without having to purchase add-on modules.

OBrien concludes, We are delighted with how the system has been implemented by the team at VoiteQ. The support we received before the store opened and during our first few days of trading has been invaluable. We are looking forward to a long working relationship with VoiteQ.