“Top to Toe’s clothing and footwear clients need their shops to look good. Since we approached AURES almost two years ago to supply our new and existing clients with hardware for our specialist EPOS and stock management software, the response has been very positive. The AURES YUNO is currently the most popular. It is aesthetically pleasing and very affordable for smaller boutiques, but still has good processing power. However, eyebrows are always raised when we show prospects the very stylish AURES SANGO.”
Adam Bloom, Sales and Marketing Manager
Intelligence-led Retail Solutions
According to certain popular buzz phrases doing the rounds in business over the past few years, we are currently living through the ‘Information Age’, while we all work, do business and carry out transactions in a ‘knowledge economy.’
Media-friendly sound bites these might be, but they get to the heart of how business and commerce operates in the 21st century. Driven largely by the evolution of digital technology, data and information have never been so important.
With every little detail of every transaction nowadays logged, stored and processed by a computerised system, even the smaller businesses have better insight into their operations, where their strengths are and where improvements can be made than ever before.
To a certain extent, success in business, the ability to make efficiency gains, drive down costs, boost productivity and respond to market demands, now depends on how well a business can harness and use the intelligence available.
One company which was early in recognising the rising value of business intelligence is London-based retail software specialist Top to Toe. Established more than 30 years ago, Top to Toe set out to give ‘size/colour’ retailers – fashion, sports and footwear outlets which offer highly differentiated product ranges – a simple, intuitive means of managing stock and making intelligence-based purchasing decisions.
The company’s core client base is independent clothing, footwear and sportswear retailers. Sales and marketing manager Adam Bloom said: “Our clients range from those with small boutiques with a drive to grow and develop, to those who have 10 or more stores. The common link is that they all need a specialist approach to stock management and reporting.”
Over the three decades Top to Toe has been operating, retail has changed significantly, with the arrival of eCommerce, mobile technology and open online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay high on the list of disruptive forces. The company has helped its clients navigate those changes by providing clients with a simple and straightforward means of gaining and maintaining an online presence.
By combining stock control, reporting, EPOS and eCommerce in a single integrated platform, Top to Toe offers an intelligence-led solution tailor-made for today’s multi-channel digital world – one that independent clothing, footwear and sportswear retailers need to be a part of to stay ahead of their competitors.
A Specialist Solution
Adam explained that Top to Toe’s USP is offering a single-pane-of-glass solution which makes all stock and inventory data for fashion retailers easily accessible in one place.
“If a retailer wants to obtain reports on suppliers, types, seasons etc, it’s only one click away,” he said. “Similarly, if a retailer wishes to view stock, sales or orders on a size and colour view in a matrix grid, it’s also only one click away.
“Many small independent retailers still use pen and paper, updating records manually. This keeps accurate records but is tedious and time consuming. On the other hand, with a non-specialist retail EPOS platform, it is the product entry and size/colour reporting that is tedious and time consuming. Imagine entering stock per SKU rather than per product line.”
“What is unique about Top to Toe is the way data is handled and presented. There are systems which include size / colour matrix views as options, but you still have to navigate through various menus to get what you want.”
“Being able to access data in an intuitive format, in a single click, whether it’s on a product level or size/colour level, literally saves hours per month compared to a manual ‘pen and paper’ approach, or a non-size/colour system. The Top to Toe UX (user experience) is built to give clients the customisable reports they want, putting the requirements of clothing and footwear retailers to the fore.”
The latest version of the platform automatically updates stock and sales positions on the Top to Toe central hub once a sale has been made on any channel, whether online or in store. “Retailers automatically update their stock whenever a product sells, in a shop or on the web,” explained Adam.
“Then Top to Toe ensures the new stock position is automatically updated everywhere, on every website and at the till, which makes multichannel eCommerce a manageable task for independent retailers. Our clients now effortlessly sell on eBay, Amazon and their own website, without having to buy extra stock they keep separate or employ a new staff member to manage their web channels.
Coupled with this automated management of stock and sales data, Top to Toe also allows retailers to gain quick insight into sales trends across product lines. “Retailers who want to make informed buying and pricing decisions on what SKUs to buy for next season require a specialist reporting system that presents data in an intuitive way,” added Adam.
“Top to Toe couldn’t make it any easier, as it’s been built specifically around the needs of clothing and footwear retailers. On one interactive, customisable, focused interface, the retailer can run reports on suppliers, product types, season and much, much more, as well as drilldown to view stock, sales and orders in a size and colour matrix grid.
“Consequently, their buying and pricing decisions become incredibly well informed, and just as importantly, everything takes much less time. We have run tests that have proven that what takes two hours in another system can take less than an hour in Top to Toe, and we offer guarantees to our customers based on that.”
AURES hardware
EPOS is a critical piece in the Top to Toe jigsaw. The direct link between stock control and sales is what allows for automated stock management and real time business intelligence.
As with all of its solutions, Top to Toe’s EPOS platform is software-based, and capable of operating on a variety of hardware. Dealing mainly with small businesses, Top to Toe offers to stage its products on currently owned PCs, Macs and tablets, and also stocks a range of desktop and mobile computing endpoints which it provides with its products pre-configured.
Recognising that PC-based EPOS systems were being superseded by purpose-built all-in-one terminals that combined the processing power required to run sophisticated EPOS software with user-friendly touchscreen interfaces and attractive designs, Top to Toe approached AURES in 2016 to inquire about stocking its products.
“Top to Toe’s clothing and footwear clients need their shops to look good,” said Adam. “Since we approached AURES almost two years ago to supply our new and existing clients with hardware for our specialist EPOS and stock management software, the response has been very positive.
“The AURES YUNO is currently the most popular. It is aesthetically pleasing and very affordable for smaller boutiques, but still has good processing power. However, eyebrows are always raised when we show prospects the very stylish AURES SANGO.”
Asked to sum up the advantages AURES products offer from his clients’ perspective, Adam said: “A lot of the feedback we get focuses on how aesthetically pleasing and stylish the units are, but also how reliable. AURES also offers a good selection of add-ons and peripherals, and overall the hardware works beautifully with Top to Toe.”
About Top to Toe
Founded in 1987, Top to Toe specialises in stock management solutions for the fashion/clothing, sportswear, footwear and school wear retail sectors. With a client base comprised mainly of independent, growing retail businesses, Top to Toe’s approach is based on understanding the challenges faced by size/colour retailers, and delivering simple, intuitive, cost effective solutions.
By combining EPOS, automated stock control, reporting and eCommerce integration in a single, accessible platform, Top to Toe helps apparel and footwear retailers harness real-time business intelligence in order to improve decision making and efficiency.