Clinton Cards installs Aruba wireless kit in all UK stores

Specialist cards and gifts firm moves stock management onto Aruba wireless network

Greetings cards and gifts specialist Clinton Cards has rolled out new wireless networks across all its 810 locations using Aruba's Mobile Virtual Enterprise (MOVE) architecture.

Clinton Cards had been looking for a tighter stock control going from a manual stock management system to an automated one, allowing the firm to reduce excess stock in its stores, and reduce time taken for stock checks.

Clinton chose Aruba's Virtual Branch Networking (VBN) system, based on Aruba's Move architecture. The system was put in over Xmas 2010 and went live after the festive season.

Each store has an Aruba Networks AP61 802.11b/g access point (AP) providing wireless coverage.

Deploying the Aruba APs did not require extensive infrastructure and was "easy for shop fitters to install without any specific technical skill," said Clinton Cards head of IT engineering, Chris Hill.

"Aruba's system was very easy to install, which was important since none of our 810 stores has independent IT departments," added Hill.

Clinton Cards stores vary in size from typically 1,900 square feet to about 4,000 square feet. There are about 650 Clinton Cards branded stores and over 170 Birthdays branded outlets.

Hill pointed out that Aruba's APs gave "excellent coverage, even at 2.4GHz [unlicensed radio spectrum shared with standard Wi-Fi hotspots], with the signal penetrating several floors, even in our larger stores".

He added: "If the WAN fails, the Aruba VBN provides automatic WPA2-PSK backup, allowing us to continue, albeit locally, until the WAN recovers."

The single AP in Clinton Cards local stores is connected to a local server, and products are scanned using a Psion handheld scanner. This server then uploads the stock data over a standard ADSL connection and sends it back to the datacentre.

As well as its retail stores, Clinton's Loughton-based warehouse also rolled out a wireless network using eight Aruba Networks AP93 APs, which offer 802.11 a/b/g/n access supported from a single Aruba 620 branch office controller.

Clinton Cards is now considering using its VBN system as a "front-of-office" application to take wireless payments from customers.