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Vision Express chooses the DigiPoS Retail Core

Vision Express is one of the UK’s leading optical Retailers. Some 3,600 personnel work in its 198 UK stores and the business is in turn part of GrandVision who operate 900 stores across 15 countries ensuring the group is the largest optical retailer in Europe.

In 1988 Vision Express pioneered the concept of the “One Hour” optician service and the company continues to lead the market in genuine one-hour service today.

Part of Vision Express’ success is its focus on Customer Service and in order to deliver this, the business needs a solid service infrastructure and solutions to support it. Electronic Point of Sale (EPoS) forms an important part of the technology solution in store - and Vision Express has been keen to ensure it stays ahead in ensuring speed of service through technology reliability. In 2007, following a number of years use of Fujitsu PC equipment, Vision Express undertook a review of the PoS marketplace - with a view to replacing a number of legacy systems and new installations.

Responsible for a major part of the project was Ash Edwards, IT Support Manager at Vision Express, who outlined the core issues and objectives:
“We are a very service orientated business and as a result look for the Customer experience to be second to none. In practical terms with regards store technology that means reliability, speed, ease of deployment and cost. It was with these criteria in mind that we set about a comprehensive review of the EPoS marketplace”.

The Digipos Retail Core EPoS systems made an immediate impression on Ash and his team: “We liked the Retail Core the first time we saw it - and the appeal grew substantially as we fully appreciated what was behind the retail specific design. The thing that first strikes you about the Retail Core is the ultra compact size, and the system configuration that means its an ideal solution for the retail environments.”

Working together the technology teams from both companies tested the performance of the Retail Core in fields trials, in particular focussing on the operational performance of the Vision Express software application working with the Retail Core’s Intel processor.

Ian Patterson UK Managing Director at DigiPoS outlined the findings:
“Today it is very common for many of us to look at what the headline speed of a processor is claimed to be, without always looking more closely at the operational requirements the Retailer truly has. This can lead to over-specified systems, significant increases in cost and for no practical increase in performance. Vision Express, in common with many other Retailers we work closely with, are taking a needs driven approach, which also actually reduces the levels of complexity at the point of service.”

The DigiPoS Retail Core also provided the Vision Express team with a further compelling argument - its “Green” credentials.

Ash Edwards further explained:
“Once we were convinced on the ultra small footprint, system performance, ease of installation and overall low cost we wanted to examine more closely what this meant in terms of our being able to make a contribution environmentally. We were pleasantly suprised to learn that the DigiPoS Retail Core uses only 15watts of power - and this was an attractive proposition when looking at the installation of some 1,000 systems.

Download the Vision Express case study