Sector: Retail and wholesale · Platform: Sage 200 with integrated EPOS
The business
A family-owned business, Loon Fung — ‘Dragon & Phoenix’ in English — runs two cash and carry outlets and three retail operations across London. The stores serve both account and cash customers, stocking fresh and packaged foods, household items and kitchen equipment.
Customers come from the restaurant, catering and takeaway trade and from smaller specialist grocery stores, alongside growing consumer demand across cosmopolitan London. The business also continues to develop its export arm.
The challenge
Loon Fung needed to replace a non-integrated EPOS system that was generating a great deal of duplication, checking and hard work for staff at every level. The back office ran on Sage Line 100, and users spent many hours re-keying data from a never-ending mountain of paperwork.
Management wanted to automate the operation and achieve a fully integrated solution — simple and easy to use, but with the functionality a fast-moving business needs.
“We’ve always been prepared to invest in technology where it will enhance the customer experience and improve our efficiency and profitability. So, we embarked on the search for a solution that would put an end to the problems we’d been experiencing.”
— David Chin, Managing Director, Loon Fung
The solution
Impress Solutions was selected for its experience and its ability to demonstrate a highly proactive and flexible approach to delivering a complete, integrated Sage solution.
We recommended an upgrade from Sage Line 100 to Sage 200, with an additional retail module supporting the back office, and integrated EPOS across the cash and carry and retail operations — 32 tills across all stores. The solution included seamlessly integrated hand-held terminals, Avery scales and Chip and PIN.
Bespoke customisation included a dual Chinese and English interface and printing, plus further enhancements aligning the system to how the business actually works.
Delivered without closing the doors
“Working with Impress, we carefully planned and executed the project to avoid any disruption to business or loss of trading time. New tills were individually brought into commission as the old tills were closed down and removed one at a time.”
— David Chin, Managing Director, Loon Fung
The results
The solution made an immediate impact, giving all staff accurate, real-time views of the trading position, with end-to-end integration replacing the re-keying.
“Sustained success demands the ability to deliver excellent, yet profitable, service to our customers. In a competitive sector, our Sage solution enables managers at all stores to react rapidly to changing circumstances. We’re now equipped to constantly improve our customers’ experience of shopping at Loon Fung and ensure we meet their needs profitably.”
— David Chin, Managing Director, Loon Fung
The integrated system also delivered more flexible multibuy and buy-one-get-one-free promotions, central product and barcode updates across every branch, and reporting that identified popular products and the value of discounts.
What came next
Impress went on to implement Sage Business Intelligence and Workspaces, customer loyalty schemes and membership cards, forecasting, and full integration between the point-of-sale and CCTV systems.