"Now Boarding? Faster Checkout and Improved Business Operations for Paradies' Airport Concession Stores With New IBM Point-of-Sale Systems"

Monday, June 9, 2003

Now Boarding? Faster Checkout and Improved Business Operations for Paradies'
Airport Concession Stores With New IBM Point-of-Sale Systems
Press Release


ATLANTA, - The Paradies Shops, the largest operator of airport concession
stores in North America, is adopting new IBM SurePOS 500 point-of-sale
systems to help improve business operations and enhance customer service and
checkout time at its hundreds of airport stores, IBM announced today.  

The new touch-screen IBM POS systems are part of Paradies' transformation of
its entire operations to a new host-based system supporting merchandising,
distribution, financials, inventory control and point-of-sale across the
entire Paradies company. At the heart of that system is an IBM eServer
pSeries. 

Atlanta-based Paradies has approximately 325 stores in 59 airports in the
United States and Canada, including newsstands, gift shops, sunglass stores,
western stores, ladies accessory shops and children's shops, and is the
exclusive licensee of the PGA TOUR Shops, Brooks Brothers, CNBC News, the
Big Ten Conference and the Atlantic Coast Conference. Those airports serve a
half-billion passengers every year.

While the concepts and products can vary dramatically, all of Paradies'
airport shops face one common, unique retail problem. They need to have
fast, reliable checkout for the long lines of hurried customers that always
seem to appear just before and after flights in each airport.

"Our goal for a new POS system was a powerful, reliable, networked system
that could easily allow our store employees to quickly process
transactions," said John O'Hare, director of Information Technology for
Paradies. "It was very important that the POS systems be retail-hardened for
the constant use in an airport environment. The easy, touch-screen interface
also allows us to reduce training time for new employees.

"We had seen how rugged and dependable the SurePOS 500 has been in the food
service industry, where employees are pounding it all day and where labor
turnover and training are challenges," he continued. "We knew that if it
could survive in the food service business, it could take care of our
requirements."

The IBM SurePOS 500 was originally designed and hardened for the rigors of
the quick service restaurant business, and it is a popular choice in
restaurant chains. Other retailers, particularly in the hospitality
industry, have been drawn to its dependability, sleek design and
touch-screen interface of the SurePOS 500. 

In a fast-food environment, the sales staff using a touch-screen SurePOS 500
can touch a "hot key" for a combo or particular product, and the system
automatically calculates the total.  Paradies is doing something similar at
its airport shops to speed checkout, using a hot key for such popular,
fast-selling items as bottled water and specific newspapers, such as USA
Today. 

Another major benefit of the new networked POS systems is the way it can
help collect and report sales and inventory data back to Paradies
headquarters in Atlanta. Prior to rolling out the new, networked POS
systems, for example, Paradies had to employ one person fulltime for 10
hours a day to collect and compile sales data from its 11 shops in the
Nashville airport. With the new system, it takes that one person
approximately two hours a day to complete the sales audit process.

With the numerous different types of stores, Paradies had gone beyond the
old newspapers-and-candy newsstands of the past, bringing new inventory
control challenges such as sizes and colors of apparel. "The new system has
reduced the number of products we must mark down, and now we are
replenishing products based on what we are actually selling, not on what we
thought was selling," added Mr. O'Hare. 

About The Paradies Shops
Established in 1960 in Atlanta, The Paradies Shops operates more than 325
shops in 59 airports in the U.S. and Canada that service one-half billion
passengers each year. Paradies has more stores in more airports than another
other company in the airport concession industry; the company also operates
some off-airport retail stores. A privately held corporation, Paradies has
posted 42 years of consecutive sales growth, ending 2002 with sales of $239
million.  Paradies is the exclusive airport licensee of Brooks Brothers, PGA
TOUR and CNBC, and the exclusive partner of the Big Ten Conference and the
Atlantic Coast Conference. The Paradies Shops was recently named the 2003
Georgia Family Business of the Year. 

About IBM
IBM, the world's largest information technology company, provides the Retail
Industry with a full range of e-business solutions, including: point-of-sale
systems, other hardware and software technology, consulting focused on
business transformation, IT strategy and planning, store operations
improvement, and supply chain optimization, and with services, such as
outsourcing, managed operations, systems integration, and application
development and design. IBM has been the leader in retail point-of-sale
systems for more than 20 years, with more than 2 million installed and a
list of customers in 100 countries worldwide that reads like a "Who's Who"
of retailing.  For more information on IBM Retail Solutions, please visit
http://www.ibm.com/industries/retail


 Do you have an opinion about this story?
Share it with other readers in our CAA Discussion Forums

http://www.californiaaviation.org/dc/dcboard.php

*****************************************