Countrywide is the leading UK supplier of products, services and advice to the rural community through retail and direct sales. The company employs over 1000 people and its extensive products and services are available from 47 country stores (most of which are open 7 days a week) and an excellent, 24 hour, online shop: www.countrywidefarmers.co.uk.
Countrywide's retail business has aggressive growth plans and has made some significant acquisitions, with more planned for the future.
Countrywide had been working with Datalogic partner Advanced Retail Technologies (ART) for some time, developing a complete warehouse/EPOS/retail system based on the latest .NET and SQL technologies. However, as Countrywide's business and number of stores expanded, further technology was required to improve the accuracy of the supply chain from distribution, through goods in and out into the stores.
ART recommended Datalogic's Memor™, which supported ART's ‘TraxMobile' solution. An initial pilot in 10 stores showed how much time and labor could be saved and today, the Memor™ is a key device in the operation of all 47 Countrywide stores. ART has incorporated a solution called the ‘bucket' wherein a quantity of goods can be scanned and then later store managers can decide what to do with these items in terms of write offs, transfers, stock takes, picks, purchase orders, etc.
"Since the roll out of the HHT guns within Countrywide, the financial benefits have been realized through the reduction in the time taken to carry out the weekly stocktaking procedure. This equates to 2/3 of the time saved, a major success." indicated Steve Collard - Head of Retail Operations, Countrywide Farmers.
