Garden & Leisure Group have become the latest users of WinRetail, a fully integrated PoS, Stock Control and Merchandising system produced by Corby & Fellas Ltd.

The Garden & Leisure Group is one of the UK's most successful garden and leisure retailers; they have seven garden centres, including the award winning Cadbury Centre, near Bristol, voted 'Britain's Best Garden Retailer' for 2009.

With an unrivalled reputation for their diverse range of plants, gifts, friendly customer service and fantastic displays, the company sets itself very high standards. So, when it came to choosing a new EPoS and Retail Management system, they wanted the best.

Garden & Leisure needed to replace their old Torex system with one that would better meet the company's exacting requirements for the future. Grant Davis, G&L's IT Director, was charged with the task of recommending a new system. He explained: "I looked at many systems during my research; I wanted one that was flexible, that would meet the company's immediate and long term needs and would be well supported. Also - perhaps most importantly of all - I needed to feel confident that we could work in close harmony with the new vendor."

Grant's recommendation to the board was that Corby & Fellas' WinRetail system should be adopted, with the proviso that the system was first piloted to establish that it would meet the company's expectations.

Grant continued: "Corby & Fellas were not on my initial short-list, but, following a recommendation, I thought that they would be worth a look. I invited them down to give a demo, but with no great expectations. I assumed that WinRetail would not be capable of running an operation of our size - but nothing could have been further from the truth. I was 'blown away' by the scope and functionality of the system. My first and abiding impression of WinRetail is that it's amongst the best retail systems around."

G&L decided to implement the system in three phases: Phase 1 addressed their most immediate need to replace the ailing EPoS terminals at the Cadbury and at Huntingdon Centres before the start of the busy Christmas period. This phase was completed, as planned, by the end of September 2009.

WinPos - the PoS module of WinRetail - runs on sleek and powerful Vogue terminals. Each terminal is fitted with dual LCD screens, with an operator-facing touchscreen and a customer-facing monitor. Customers can see details of current offers and up-and-coming events to keep them entertained and informed. Apart from speed and ease of use, the new tills also offer a huge array of offers and promotions. Says Grant: "WinPos shows the customer what promotions they are getting as the goods are scanned, they can see a running total of their purchases and the discount applied."

The new till system is also green - environmentally speaking - reflecting Garden & Leisure Group's recent Award for Best Environmental Policy at the Garden Retail Awards 2009. The terminals automatically switch off overnight, saving over ten hours of electricity per till, per day. Grant said: "This means we can pass on financial savings to our customers and considerably reduce our carbon footprint - which is something Garden and Leisure feels very passionately about."

G&L reported excellent trading during the run up to Christmas, over this time the new system was thoroughly tested. With the completion of the pilot phase the 2nd Phase can commence, with the installation of WinPoS at the remaining 5 centres during January and February 2010.

The 3rd and final phase is planned for completion during the summer of 2010. The entire retail management operation will then switch over to WinRetail, including a link to the existing Piccolink hand-held terminals.

Grant concluded his comments by saying: "We chose Corby & Fellas' retail system because we felt that we could work in partnership with them. The system is designed and developed entirely by C&F, so we didn't have to deal with a third-party provider, and they were willing to enhance WinRetail to suit our specific needs. I can't recommend them highly enough."