Activant Eagle Helps Eight-Store Hagan Ace Hardware Chain Run Smoothly
Executive Summary
Through a strategy of opening new locations and acquiring existing
stores, this powerful Ace Hardware affiliate has grown from one
store in 1962 to eight stores today. An Activant customer since
1987, Hagan Ace finds that Activant Eagle® for Windows, along with
improved business practices, increased the bottom line by nearly
1.5 percent.
Eagle Helps Deliver Superior Customer Service
Hagan Ace Hardware successfully competes against big box stores by delivering high-value
services that customers want. One store has a florist shop. Others cater to contractors with
expansive lumberyards and delivery trucks. All stores offer screen and door repair. “Most
customers’ concerns with the big boxes are the lack of service. To counter that, we ensure that
customer service is at the heart of what we do. We provide services customers need when they
come in our stores,” says George Ruckersfeldt, operations manager, Hagan Ace Hardware.
Hagan Ace began migrating to Eagle™ in 2002. With increased functionality such as RF
technology, faster point-of-sale, robust business reporting, and intuitive product look-up,
Hagan Ace uses Eagle to improve customer service. “It’s very difficult to compete against the
big boxes on price. Instead, we compete on service. Eagle helps us do that in many ways,
most notably with efficient customer checkout and accurate inventory management,”
states George.
Business Advisor—A Critical Tool for Running the Business
Hagan Ace relies on Activant Business Advisor to provide managers with both the reports
and supporting data needed to make key business decisions. “We use Business Advisor
extensively to review and analyze all aspects of the business including product sales, store
performance, inventory levels, and of course margins,” says George. Hagan Ace uses Viewers
to present data exactly as they’d like. One set of Viewers highlights SKUs with too much
inventory so managers can take actions to lower inventory levels. Another Viewer analyzes
margins by SKU so that price increases can be made as needed to increase margins. George
asserts, “By using Business Advisor and Viewers, we’ve put a little more gross profit into the
business.”
One useful Business Advisor report tracks customer sales and the number of
transactions by the time of day. Using this information, Hagan Ace better
schedules its staff to meet customer shopping patterns. For example, by analyzing
previous years’ sales and transactions per hour for busy sales days, like the day after
Thanksgiving, Hagan Ace predicts busy times of day and staffs accordingly.
Suggested Order Points Lowers Inventory Levels and Reduces Out-of-Stock Items
About four years ago, Hagan Ace began ranking sales by SKU within each class of product
and used that data to establish order points. With this method, strong selling items within
each class of product are assured to be in stock. Now that Suggested Order Points and the
corresponding business processes are established, employees simply review orders instead of
generating them from scratch. “Eagle Suggested Orders have really helped us reduce the cash
tied up in inventory and at the same time ensure that we have the stock we need on critical
items,” says George.
RF Technology Improves Inventory Processes
After discussing and evaluating the merits of RF technology for several years, Hagan Ace
implemented RF in all eight stores three years ago. Hagan Ace conducts perpetual cycle
counts, counting all items twice a year, and finds that RF both speeds the process and
increases accuracy. In fact RF technology has proved to be such a benefit that Hagan Ace has
recently added a second RF unit to each of its stores for additional inventory data accuracy
and RF ordering.
“By using RF and cycle counting together, our inventory levels and therefore suggested
orders are even more accurate. Employees spend up to 70% less time reviewing orders and
have more time to spend with customers,” exclaims George. “RF Technology is definitely the
way to go! We’re sorry we didn’t implement it sooner.”
“We find that RF technology is definitely the way to go for inventory management. We’re just sorry we didn’t implement it several years ago.”
George Ruckersfeldt
Operations Manager
Hagan Ace Hardware
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