Bookshop stocks up on new system
Vital software to be ready for Christmas after six month delay
Bookshop Ottakar’s is to finally get vital stock control software more than six months after it was forced to shelve development plans as a result of its acquisition by the HMV Group.
The company delayed installation of the system as it awaited Competition Commission scrutiny of the proposed deal, and wrote off development costs going back over two years.
All Ottakar outlets are now to be rebranded as Waterstone’s branches, which are owned by HMV, and use an updated version of Waterstone’s software.
Waterstone’s head of merchandising Nick Hudson says previously Ottakar’s used time-consuming manual processes such as printing sales data, checking quantities and keying in new orders.
‘This led to numerous problems such as not being able to manage stock on the shelves or respond to trends,’ he said.
‘As a retailer, if you do not know what is in stock, it is hard to replenish accurately.
‘Titles are now replenished automatically, which provides time savings and cost savings as there is no paper involved at all.’
Ottakar’s intends to install the software before Christmas, its busiest time of the year.
‘It is quite an aggressive schedule but we are confident we can do it,’ Hudson said. ‘We had to wait six months for the deal to go through and we were able to hone the details in that time.’
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