Andy Jong manages the busy Winner's Circle, across from the University of California campus at Berkeley. This is an exciting, vibrant environment. The many customers crowding the store are a mix of students, business people and government employees.
Andy started using POS many years ago and has faithfully stayed with it through the evolution of the sales automation technology. He's got a lot of talent at Winner's Circle. They know computers, software, and networks.
They have nine stations on a Novell Network. One is near the rear door where shipments arrive. Two people stay busy receiving shipments and printing item tags. The quantities and prices are always correct at all the stations.
One modular station is at the front door. Most over the counter sales take place there.
One station is in the back office where Andy's wife does the accounting, payroll, and other financial reports.
The remaining stations are in cubicles around the store. Sales people sit at these and determine prospects needs. They enter the name and address, do quotes, calculate loan and lease amounts, and enter orders. Some quotes are suspended and recalled later when the prospect returns to buy.
Winner's Circle assembles computers so they put the kit feature and serial number tracking to use. They have a confusing mix of sales tax rates, so they use the tax table, tax exempt customer status, and most of the other features for handling price changes at the time of the sale.
Andy says, "Being able to make a sale quickly and accurately is a major plus."
Andy is a valuable resource of computer and retailing knowledge. Many of his ideas and wishes have shaped the development of POS software.
Andy smiles and says he's now using automation to run his "toy", a tennis pro shop next door. He even has time to play tennis once in a while.
Adding solutions to people's problems, without making the programs harder to use, has been the reason for the popularity of automation.