Weird Fish, the operating brand name of Freedom Sailboards Limited, was founded in Cornwall in 1981 to distribute water-sports products throughout the UK. In 1986 the company changed its emphasis to concentrate on leisure clothing, still aimed at water-sports customers. In 1993 the brand Weird Fish (www.weirdfish.co.uk) was launched and since then the brand has grown steadily and is widely appreciated by outdoor leisure enthusiasts.
In 2005 the first Weird Fish standalone store was opened in Bath and now there are ten shops in the group with Ilkley, West Yorkshire being the most recent one to open. The group also has a fully transactional online store. In addition, Weird Fish supplies over 450 independent lifestyle and leisure stores throughout the UK with its branded clothing and accessories.
Weird Fish is one of the fastest growing lifestyle brands in the UK. With so many outlets and online as well as high street operations, managing stock efficiently is a crucial activity for running a healthy business. Eurostop has been selected by Weird Fish to provide solutions to support the company’s expanding retail operations and to manage stock efficiently across all outlets.
The company will use Eurostop’s e-rmis at its head office in Cheltenham and e-pos in the stores, replacing an older system that the company had outgrown. The sales data, which can be analysed in depth using Eurostop’s e-cubes data mining tool, will enable the merchandisers to ensure that the right stock is in the right place to maximise sales. The new system, which integrates with Microsoft Dynamics AX, will ensure that replenishment is timely and accurate, and stores receive the stock they have asked for, rather than what head office decides to send.
Weird Fish commented, “Weird Fish is expanding from our traditional wholesale base into retail. The focus of the stores is to promote the brand, build awareness and make a fuller range of products available to a wider audience.
Our investment in the Eurostop system means that we are able to place greater emphasis on better merchandising and improving support for point of sale. This will help us to maximise sales opportunities.”
Jon Goodwin, Financial Controller at Weird Fish said, “The Eurostop system gives us much more detailed and reliable information which will enable us to run our retail business more efficiently. As our product ranges continue to expand it is crucial to the success of the operation that we are able to manage our stock as efficiently as possible.”
Jon Goodwin continued, “We were looking for a technology partner that we could build a strong relationship with and work closely with in the coming years. Eurostop has an impressive client list, good references, we liked the look of the system, it integrates to Microsoft Dynamics AX and we felt that Eurostop was a good match for Weird Fish.”
Phillip Moylan, Sales and Marketing Manager at Eurostop Systems said; “With our strong retail background Eurostop understands the challenges that growing retailers, and in particular wholesalers moving into retail face. We work closely with our customers, to understand their needs and develop the systems that best meet those requirements, enabling them to concentrate on their business, empowered by Eurostop technology.”
