Barbour rolls out Yourcegid Retail to support expansion in the USA and Europe

This article is brought to you by Retail Technology Review: Barbour rolls out Yourcegid Retail to support expansion in the USA and Europe.

Barbour, the British country lifestyle brand renowned for its iconic wax jackets, has just completed a roll-out of Cegid's retail management solution across the USA and Europe in a bid to improve customer service and support its rapid international expansion strategy. To coincide with new store openings in the UK, Germany and the USA, the retailer decided to equip itself with more advanced, point-of-sale and merchandising software across its thirty plus stores in Western Europe and the USA. The retailer expects to streamline store operations using Cegid's real-time technology, including a number of modules to help with merchandise management, replenishment, advanced customer relationship management and workforce optimisation.

Neil Thursby, head of technology at Barbour, said that the new software is already benefiting the company by being able to offer consumers a smoother and faster shopping experience.

"It's a more modern and pleasant system to use, with far greater reliability when it comes to sales," he added. Thursby said that the company required something more robust and suited to its international expansion, rather than disparate systems around the world. "We realised we needed a system ideally geared towards the clothing industry, with international support as we expand into new territories, operating in different languages, time zones and tax regimes," he said. "Cegid provides us with the necessary expertise and a platform for growth."

The rollout across Europe was recently completed, following a successful six-month trial at one of Barbour's busy outlet stores. Yourcegid Retail was put alongside the old system, giving the retailer a good opportunity for comparing transaction speeds, reliability, ease-of-use and staff and customer reactions to the new system – all were positive, said Thursby, including staff appreciation of its user-friendliness and around £1 million processed quickly through the tills during a very busy period. "Yourcegid Retail has functioned well in a busy store environment and appears to offer a stable extensible platform for any future retail expansion."

"Cegid has a wealth of international expertise and we're delighted to be working with such a prestigious brand as Barbour to support their expansion into new territories," said Andy Cairns, UK director at Cegid. "We've mastered an array of retail practices across the globe and provide specific guidelines and tools to help each locality, increasing revenue and customer service."