A growing specialty retailer had outpaced the capabilities of its home-grown retail solutions. The Company had added new product lines and services over the years to its core Loan/Pawn segment, and its current systems could not keep pace with the requirements. After performing an assessment to analyze “build versus buy” options they concluded that a “buy” option would not fit their needs. As part of the Retail system re-engineering project facilitated by CG Infinity , it was determined that a mobile app would significantly enhance the availability of pawned inventory as it became available for sale.
Impact
At the point that a customer defaults on their loan, the items that a pawnshop is holding in custody become available for sale. The Company is authorized to recover any outstanding loan amount thru the sale of the item. These items are typically heavily discounted versus standard retail; however, their visibility is restricted to the store where it is physically inventoried. The vision was to offer access to tens of thousands of unique products across the chain via a mobile app. The POS system did have the ability to view products across stores. However, this process was very time-consuming for the store associate and not customer-friendly or efficient.
Solution
The newly developed centralized Retail control module, managed and maintained all product Loan data. An eCommerce mobile app was developed that had APIs to the retail control module giving a 360-degree view of inventory. So, instead of waiting for a prospective customer to buy a single item for sale at a single store, the App facilitated the broad exposure of items across all stores, enhanced the customer shopping experience, and provided the ability to purchase directly from the mobile App.
Result
The app’s main benefits were incremental sales, inventory turnover, and enhanced customer satisfaction from the much-improved browsing and shopping experience. Another benefit was customers’ ability to use the app at their leisure rather than having a store associate assist via the in-store POS significantly improving labor efficiency in the stores.