NCR Counterpoint

We are a retail pet supply store on the island of Maui (Hawaii), in business for 38 years.
As our business grew and our database included 10,000 SKUs, the program we had been using became increasingly slow and problematic, actually causing many errors that tech support could not figure out. Our supplier (and tech support) were based in San Diego, a three hour time difference, another problem in itself. It became obvious that we need to research other companies and other POS systems.

We decided that the time had arrived to shop within our own state, and were fortunate to meet with Francis of Computant in Honolulu - different island, but same time zone- important for "across the sea" support.

Our first impression of the Counterpoint POS system was "VERY EXPENSIVE"! However, after spending time with Francis and his team and watching them demonstrate the features, we could see the incredible speed and flexibility, which were money-saving features to offset the initial cost. We were sold!

Francis, being the congenial, persuasive gentleman that he is, soon had us upgraded to all new equipment, including the Radiant Touchscreen registers. His installation team of three highly competent individuals flew to Maui on the day we went "live" for the installation and training. It turned out to be one of our busiest days of the year, which made it very hectic, and somewhat stressful, but his team was truly fantastic! We were up and running smoothly on day 1.

Our sales contract included a number of hours of tech support included, and we were taken care of immediately with any and every bump in the road. They continue to have superior customer support, at any time of the day.

Having been in business for 38 years, the complexities of inventory control only seem to increase, particularly when we are across the ocean from our suppliers (7- 20 days lead times). Customer buying trends change faster than ever as new products enter the market continuously, and customer relations became ever more important to cultivate. Counterpoint makes these much more manageable. Purchase orders and receiving are simplified. Our sales staff love the ease of touchscreen cash registers (originally intimidating).

The program seemed very complex, originally. After the initial learning curve one begins to better understand the "flow", and today I am amazed at the fact that we continuously find new ways to use the software to our advantage. We are able to modify the touchscreen buttons from the back office at any time, adding or deleting buttons as needed.

If time and information are money, this program is the way to go!

It has been a road

WRONG SYSTEM FOR OUR BUSINESS

NONE

We operate a marine wholesale distributorship, along with a retail operation. Our three sources of revenue are store traffic, phone orders and Internet orders.

Our previous software system, while specific to the marine industry and bundled with features we sorely miss, was unable to integrate e-commerce, point of sale, and shipping functionality. The time we spent dealing with each order on three different levels was time-consuming, and also allowed for the introduction of errors.

We are currently running version 8.3.9 of CounterPoint, but will be upgrading to 8.4 as soon as the season slows this fall. The implementation experience was choppy, to say the least, due to a reseller that wasn't up to speed on the software. This hiccup notwithstanding, we were able grasp the basics and run with it.

We have been using CounterPoint for just under two years now and the watershed moment was when we switched partners nine months into the project. Our reseller's knowledge of the system and ability to teach us its functionality have allowed us to move forward at a rapid pace. The program is easy to use, and a common logic follows through the system so even when playing with new features, the desired result is easy to achieve.

Our current partner could stand to be slightly more responsive, especially to issues I consider to be very basic requirements in a system of this size and power.

We are currently 95% integrated with UPS WorldShip. The only thing holding us back from 100% integration is CounterPoint's inability to receive tracking numbers back from WorldShip without cumbersome export and import of data, or utilizing a third-party program. We are currently investigating CPOnline with the hope of having full vertical integration by January 1, 2012.

So far, we have been able to streamline sales, shipping & purchasing with more good things to come!

NCR Counterpoint: An Invaluable Tool...A Work In Progress