Foundation builds e-commerce business with established retail systems from Eurostop

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Foundation is an independent retailer in Gloucestershire, with two established stores located in Stow-on-the-Wold and Cheltenham. It sells clothing, homewares and accessories, with an emphasis on style, wearability and excellent customer service.

Winner of 'Womenswear Retailer of The Year' at the 2010 Drapers Awards (the UK Retail Fashion Industry's 'Oscars'),  Foundation was a finalist for 'Best New Business' at the same awards five years previously.  The business has gone from strength to strength since being founded in 2002.

Expanding the business online

The company has recently launched its online store to offer its product range not only to existing customers, but to benefit from the extended reach that the internet offers. Foundation selected Eurostop to design and implement its e-commerce site, having chosen their solution in the early days for its head office retail management and EPOS systems.

James Wiseman, co-founder of Foundation said; "We have used Eurostop's e-rmis and e-pos systems for over five years and their expertise in the retail fashion industry has been invaluable.  The big thing for us was that we wanted to have a fully integrated system that could support our stores and our new e-commerce site choosing Eurostop meant that we could achieve this with just one supplier."

Accurate multi-channel stock management

Foundation currently uses e-rmis and e-pos to manage stock across both its stores. Integrating e-commerce with the current system enables orders to be fulfilled from one central pool of stock, reducing wastage. Managing stock more efficiently is just one of the benefits that the management team has found. Foundation uses reports drawn from e-rmis to review stock allocation to identify hot sellers and languishing lines and forecast accurately when buying stock.

Increasing sales through social media

Future plans also include further digital marketing campaigns using social media Twitter and Facebook to encourage more people to visit the site.
"We expect our e-commerce sales to grow exponentially over the next three years and to match the turnover of one of our stores easily within twelve months. With our previous success at the Drapers Awards, our next ambition is to win e-tailer of the year!" said Wiseman.