Technology
The Paper Store revolutionizes tech to enhance customer experience, streamline operations
When The Paper Store ripped and replaced an aging POS it not only boosted the customer experience it reaped a long list of wins.
February 27, 2024 by Judy Mottl — Editor, RetailCustomerExperience.com & DigitalSignageToday.com
Ripping out a legacy monolithic point-of-sale system, one featuring hardware a dozen years old and presenting a limited ability to keep up with patching and maintenance, may seem like an easy decision for a retailer.
But it's not considering it would require an expensive full hardware replacement and time-consuming maintenance.
That's the position The Paper Store found itself in 2023. It was running Windows 7 on the legacy hardware and found it couldn't migrate to Windows 10 due to the heavy POS footprint.
"Our legacy POS system was robust and full of features, but the hardware was aging and limiting our ability to keep up with patching and maintenance. We were facing a full hardware replacement to continue with our legacy POS. New hardware was expensive with time-consuming maintenance. We were running Windows 7 on our legacy hardware, when we tried to move to Windows 10 the heavy POS footprint would not perform," said Craig Hewitt, The Paper Store's COO, said in an email interview.
The 60-year-old retailer had been unable to make even incremental upgrades since 2019 due to hardware constraints.
Additional POS-related pain points included a long time in deploying new stores and registers, complicated store training, no mobility in stores and multiple systems needed to complete in-store functions for store sales, store order management and store inventory management.
But just as important, from a customer experience viewpoint, the POS was not providing what every shopper expects with every retailer — a fast, seamless transaction.
The big decision
The Paper Store, one of the largest family-owned and operated specialty gift retailers in the U.S., runs 100 stores, with 3,000 employees, throughout the Northeast and in Florida as well as a robust online storefront. Its shelves, in-store and virtual, are home to accessories, home décor, jewelry, sports items, stationery and fashion apparel with top brands including Lilly Pulitzer, Vera Bradley and Pura Vida. In 2020 The Paper Store was sold, and its company parent now operates as TPS Group Holdings LLC.
A key to its longevity and success has been its ability to listen to what is new and important to customers.
When the POS decision came to the forefront of operational focus the retailer had a choice — keep and replace the aging POS system or tear it out and lay in a new POS infrastructure.
The second option, which it chose, would allow it to modernize in-store technology, empower store associates and provide customers with a rewarding and speedy checkout experience.
After evaluating several potential solutions, the retailer chose Jumpmind's cloud-native, mobile POS to power its stores given Jumpmind's proven expertise and confidence in its future-proof architecture.
Cloud technology allows The Paper Store to enhance scalability, flexibility and agility so the brand can be quicker to adapt to changing market demands and seamless expand the physical footprint.
"Jumpmind's user-friendly interface, breadth of functionality, ability to customize, and out-of-box integration with our third-party systems drove us to move forward with Jumpmind. The Jumpmind team was open to our ideas and input, they worked closely with us to understand our needs and how they would work in their application," Hewitt said.
The POS system provides store associates with a mobile-first approach, enabling them to efficiently execute a multitude of tasks, including inventory management and unified commerce execution.
Such capabilities, such as streamlining daily tasks, allows associates more time to engage and help shoppers and elevate the customer experience.
"Jumpmind provides a flexible POS platform that can be used on a variety of hardware options with different deployment capabilities providing the same user feel and functionality. The Jumpmind application is cloud-based and quickly syncs with all store locations, allowing for real time updates instead of using flat files and trickle polling," said Hewitt, adding as the Jumpmind Promotion tool is robust, centrally housed and can immediately sync with stores.
"With Jumpmind POS, a register or an entire store can be set up and deployed in a fraction of the time compared to our legacy system. Jumpmind POS combines selling, store order management and inventory management into a single, easy-to -use application."
Deployment involved the retailer's operations, retail systems and IT teams.
The POS and the customer experience
On the customer experience front, Hewitt said a seamless and modern POS experience is "vital" to CX given today's digitally dominated retail environment.
"When a customer's time at check-out is fast, easy, and accurate, they are more likely to continue to physically return to purchase again," he said. " When the POS system is consistently reliable, this allows our store staff to provide uninterrupted customer service; being and continuing to bring the best version of themselves to work each day. A negative POS experience translates often translates to confusion and frustration, which can lead to a negative customer experience."
The return on investment and list of additional wins is big. Hewitt pointed to reduced hardware and maintenance costs, speedier application deployment, less training time required and increased efficiency in the stores. It has also streamlined the customer data process and reduced duplicate entry to the brand's loyalty program.
While The Paper Store's POS story clearly shows big ROI, many retailers have more than a few misconceptions when it comes to plugging in a new POS system, according to Mark Michalek, director of retail product at Jumpmind.
Michalek, who describes the POS as the "Swiss Army knife" of technology in the store environment, said one of the top misnomers is that retailers think they can put off modernizing the POS.
"Due to the pandemic, there's been a massive disruption in in-store retail. During the pandemic digital transformation surged ahead, but expectations are not being met in the store," he said. "Associates are being asked to do more and more tasks, with disparate systems and often with clunky user experiences, and current labor shortages aren't helping. This is resulting in associate frustration, broken customer journeys, and disillusioned customers."
Along with misconceptions there is the reality of the legacy POS system that's sitting in many retail stores.
"Most legacy POS platforms are built as monolithic systems with tightly integrated features and functionalities. This model lacks flexibility by making it difficult to enhance or add new capabilities without extensive coding or customization, great cost and risk," said Michalek.
That's why it's necessary for retailers to "choreograph all critical in-store functions," he added, as it makes it easier for associates to execute tasks – whether that's ringing up a customer, helping with a return request, inventory management or omnichannel orders.
"POS has gone increasingly mobile and is a single pane of glass for associates, bringing e-commerce-like experiences into the store environment. We are outfitting physical stores with the technology they need to succeed in a digital/omnichannel era."
The post-pandemic digital transformation is something retailers can't ignore.
"I think the events of the past few years have shown us just how unpredictable the future is," said Michalek. "What we do know is that change is inevitable. One of the biggest benefits that Jumpmind provides is the ability to enable retailers to address the undefined needs of their business tomorrow and in the future."
About Judy Mottl
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