Since 1947, Elliott's Hardware has been offering North Texans more than "1,000 things you can't live without." Known as the Neiman Marcus of hardware stores, Elliott's three stores in Dallas, Grapevine and Plano, Texas -- each packed with over 50,000 square feet of merchandise -- offer customers a choice of more than 70,000 products. And if you're looking for that one-of-a-kind glass door knob or antique brass pull, log on to Elliott's Hardware Plus to find a range of hardware, plumbing fittings, wood trims and moldings, and wall coverings.
Starting fresh with Activant Falcon™
With such a large selection of products, managing inventory control is key. As Elliott's expanded from a two to a three-store chain, the company realized that they had outgrown their legacy system. What they needed was a more flexible, progressive solution to manage the company's inventory. But after a frustrating 18 months spent trying to convert to another system, Elliott's still had nothing.
And it was evident that this system would not be able to support the company's future needs. So in August 2001, Elliott's took a close look at what Activant had to offer and chose the Falcon system.
A speedy implementation
Adding to the challenge of converting to yet another new system was a significant time crunch. "We had to get this done before the holidays," says Mark Burris, Elliott's Hardware general manager. "We didn't want to run into our busy season with the natural challenges of a new system." Which meant once the decision was made to change, the company had little more than three months to complete a major implementation.
"We were excited, although somewhat skeptical, about the fact we could do it in 90 days," Burris recalls. "But the skepticism quickly went away once we saw the people and project management expertise that Activant was able to bring to the project.
"We picked the critical aspects to go live with first -- the point-of-sale system, the accounting and all the data conversion. Over the next few weeks, we backfilled purchase orders, as well as receiving and inventory. It gave us some experience with the system and the chance to ask questions about how it worked as we used it. The whole process went extremely well. Knowing what we'd been through with our original systems provider and we still didn't go live, the fact that Activant put this together in 90 days was pretty amazing. They had converted other customers to the Falcon and knew what problems we might encounter. They also knew our industry. I was very impressed with their ability to stay on task."
Forward-thinking functionality
What continues to impress Elliott's Hardware is Activant's functionality and flexibility. "They're really innovative," Burris remarks. "The Falcon is a go-forward, next-generation technology that we want to be a part of." A great example is Falcon's custom functionality.
"We don't operate like a typical hardware store," he explains. "Rather than a centralized buying office, the people on our sales floor do the buying. We needed to get as much information on our bin tags to help employees with ordering. We liked the functionality of Falcon's integrated Tag Program package that customizes the tags and signs." With the Falcon Tag Package, Elliott's can design their own labels and print them on a laser printer from their PCs and character terminals.
What does the future hold for Elliott's? With their new Falcon system, Elliott's could now scan the Key Cards from their popular customer loyalty program. The "Key Customer Card," which over 25,000 customers currently hold, has a bar coded customer number on the back. Now when a Key Customer comes up to a register, a clerk can scan the back of the customer's Key Card, and their Activant Falcon automatically brings up the customer's account with all the customer's privileges and benefits on screen.
Already reaping benefits
In the nine months that Falcon has been up and functional, we've been able to increase our profits using better pricing control and management at the registers, and inventory control. And even though Falcon's not fully implemented it has also allowed us to increase our turns.
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Clarke's Hardware "With every Activant Eagle module we deploy, we become more efficient and effective, and the business runs better and more profitably." Read Clarke, Owner
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