Successful international fashion brand CHARLES & KEITH has over 350 stores worldwide, through which they bring trends to fashion-forward consumers. Initially founded as a ladies footwear brand, CHARLES & KEITH has since grown to include bags and accessories including belts, sunglasses, bracelets and tech accessories to their product line-up. Its brand of fast fashion and contemporary wear has garnered the brand an international following.

Choosing an ePOS solution for China and beyond

Following their successful expansion into Indonesia in 1998, for CHARLES & KEITH the natural next step was a move into the fast growing Chinese market, which it set about doing in 2010. To support this move, the company needed to set up operations and consider the specific language and denominational requirements of the region across its EPOS and back end systems. It was at this point that the company began evaluating the EPOS market.

With a very specific set of requirements linked to the fashion sector, the Chinese market and across borders and locations, this international business undertook a comprehensive EPOS market review and selection process, from which they chose Eurostop.

A good functional fit enables fast roll out

“Eurostop was the obvious choice for us,” explains Charles Wong “Not only is the company a specialist in the fashion and footwear industry, but they also met our business functionality needs as standard. The software is available in English and Chinese, which made it far easier and quicker to install, educate and roll it out. We got our head office and store level teams up and running really quickly.”

Today, CHARLES & KEITH are using the Eurostop e-pos, e-retail and e-cubes functional modules across its head office and more than 90 stores in China, rolling out the system on the first day of trading in the first store, which opened in Shanghai, China in April 2010.

Efficient stock controls and powerful reporting enables smart buying

The head office team use Eurostop’s e-retail module to effectively manage all aspects of stock control; identifying where stock is and moving it to stores to replenish stocks based on CHARLES & KEITH’s preset stock minimum /maximum parameters. This has reduced their manual workload dramatically, which in turn has delivered a cost saving.

The company, which adds 20 – 30 new lines across its concept stores each week, also uses sales data reporting tool e-cubes to identify which products or product mixes are the hot sellers in different stores. This then enables the marketing and merchandising teams to create promotions and maximise sales across the company’s stores.

“Eurostop e-cubes is incredibly useful,” says Charles. “It is giving us a lot of flexibility to analyse our data in all dimensions.”

Ease of use in-store

At store level, all cashiers, store managers and sales teams are using Eurostop’s e-pos system to record and access sales data. “We like the e-pos system because it is so user friendly. It has significantly reduced our store training time,” says Charles.

A supportive relationship

Understanding that moving into new geographies, cultures, languages and operating environments is a challenging and intensive process, the Eurostop team has worked closely with CHARLES & KEITH on the roll-out of the system. An open approach between customer and supplier during this business critical time and through their rapid growth since opening their first store in 2010 has been vital and beneficial to both CHARES & KEITH and to Eurostop. “Eurostop has given us very good support and high level of services,” adds Charles. “The team are very professional and patient and they are always available to take care of us. We are very happy and satisfied with Eurostop and pleased that we chose to work with them here in China.”

For CHARLES & KEITH, more growth is on the horizon. The brand already has more than 350 stores worldwide, including opening their doors at Japan’s Harajuku district and Macau’s The Venetian in 2013; a location which is also using the Eurostop e-pos solution. In its home ground of Singapore, the company celebrated the opening of their concept shop along the prominent stretch of luxury shopping along Orchard Road, at Takashimaya Ngee Ann City.

“We are looking forward to continuing our successful relationship with this premium brand in Asia and hope to be able to support them in further new territories as they open,” says Hew Poh Yin, Managing Director for Eurostop operations in Asia. “We’ve certainly enjoyed being a part of their success so far.”