Mothercare goes online to generate multi-lingual point of sale

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As Mothercare looks to further develop the international side of its business, the company has made it easier for its overseas franchisees to create and print marketing material locally by adopting the web-based net.tickIT sign and ticketing solution from Pierhouse, the software specialist that helps retailers market their products to customers instore.

A multi-lingual version of net.tickIT has been developed to accommodate any number of translations, which can then be incorporated automatically into Mothercares marketing templates to ensure brand compliance. A set of reporting tools is also included so that Mothercare in the UK has full visibility, and control, of what is being produced. All 51 countries in which Mothercare is represented, including Pakistan, Kuwait, India, Taiwan, Jordan, Slovakia, Estonia and Spain, have access to net.tickIT and many are already benefiting from the advantages of the system.

With everything available on line it is far easier to create the point of sale in the first instance, says Emma Saunter, international marketing manager, Mothercare and Early Learning Centre. Once a new piece of collateral is produced it is saved in the system so that it can be reused and we avoid duplication and also errors. Previously information was supplied on discs and held locally so if information was lost it had to be re-created; now staff simply log on and retrieve it from the main system.

As we grow both the number of overseas outlets and countries in which we are represented it was important to find a solution that was fast, scalable and flexible as well as allowing us to have business critical information held in the UK.

Currently country hubs are creating and printing the POS and distributing it to the relevant shops. However, the plan is for individual stores to log on and print their requirements in-house.

As more UK retailers are looking to develop their international operations as domestic business toughens, it was important for us to develop net.tickIT as a powerful single data source for all instore marketing communications regardless of output device, geographic location, language or currency, explains David Jenkins, business development director, Pierhouse.