Expanding global lifestyle brand, Cath Kidston has opened two, wholly owned stores, in China’s prestigious Cloud 9 and Raffles City shopping malls in Shanghai, both powered by Futura’s international EPOS and merchandise management solution.
The two Chinese stores have been fully integrated into Cath Kidston’s UK network and head office system which has used Futura retail technology since 2001. With multi-lingual, multi-currency support as standard, the benefit is one seamless system, providing managers with a single view of the whole business, without the need for cumbersome third party systems integration.
Sales and retail data from the Chinese stores will be available to UK-based head office staff and a daily price file will convert UK pricing into Chinese currency at the till. The Futura solution will automatically replenish store stock from the UK and Hong Kong.
Mike Padfield, IT Director at Cath Kidston is confident that Futura is the right choice to support this expansion. “Previously we have worked with partners to access new markets in Asia. Futura’s international version which fully supports China’s double byte character set means have been able to confidently open new stores in Shanghai, linking systems directly to our UK head office team”.
“It means we have more control but without the need for local HO infrastructure. At the same time Futura’s past success in meeting our UK system requirements make them the natural choice for this expansion.”
Mike Padfield, IT Director - Cath Kidston