Futura4POS eases international expansion for Cath Kidston

Breaking into lucrative international markets, especially the Far East and China, is an obvious next step for many UK-based fashion and lifestyle brands where rising incomes and with it the desire for western goods appears unstoppable at the moment.

Cath Kidston Japanese expansion

Cath Kidston Japanese expansion

But although it is a very desirable goal, it is not without its challenges. Different currencies and payment systems, cultures and languages are just a few of the things to consider as part of your expansion strategies.A suitable EPOS environment that allows central deployment and updates with minimal requirement for additional in-country overheads, may be necessary in order to control costs and expenditure. A multi-currency, multi-lingual solution with support for 2-byte character sets, will also be important and management teams who may be based back in the UK will expect real time live access to data from stores across your estate and in different time zones.

These are just some of the factors that attracted Cath Kidston, the fashion and apparel brand, to Futura’s Java-based retail environment – Futura4POS. In September the brand bought back its Japanese franchise business of 27 stores in order to take better control of an exciting and fast growing market. In doing so they needed a multi-lingual global EPOS solution and one that could be implemented overnight to ensure business continuity and uninterrupted trading as the stores changed hands.

Futura4POS was selected because it provides an advanced real-time, multi-lingual, hardware independent retail environment, with the ability to roll out and update from Cath Kidston offices in the UK, without significant in-country overheads. It’s fully scalable too. You can find more information on Futura4POS here.

Our software team worked side by side with Cath Kidston IT director, Karl de Bruijn, and the management team in the UK, to develop a complete in-store retail model including a Japanese front end and a fully translated product catalogue, all prior to the transition date. With the tills installed, we could then connect remotely and install the system overnight, without the need for specialist in country resources.

Cath Kidston Japanese expansion

Cath Kidston Japanese expansion

The system links back to Cath Kidston’s Futura-based head office systems in the UK for daily retail management tasks including allocations and merchandising, all live in real time. Updates from the UK flow out and down to each store. Another crucial stage at the ‘go live’ date was to have immediate visibility for sales and performance data so the team in the UK could see what stock was available, how stores were performing and whether they needed support, all in Japanese time.

Web services have made it straight forward to integrate with a number of third party systems including local warehouse and logistics functions, and a CRM system closely coupled with a real time loyalty reward system, all mastered in Futura, will go live shortly. Karl de Bruijn describes working with Futura and the experience to date as “phenomenal”. For the full story and more of his comments, click here.

If you would like more information or advice on whether Futura4POS would be a good fit for your operation and how it can support international expansion contact the Futura support team.

 

Futura provide EPOS and stock management solutions for lifestyle retailers.  To keep up to date, the Futura blog is always a good place to start so make sure you are signed up or why not follow us for our latest updates on Twitter?

 

Did you know?

“With a Java-based IT architecture, Futura4POS delivers what progressive lifestyle and fashion retailers need, especially brands looking to expand and trade internationally. A next step up for many Futura customers, the focus is on real time data anywhere, all in a robust and secure POS solution.”

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