The Old Treehouse
Children's store, The Old Treehouse, has taken its business from store-only to multi-channel, thanks to integrated technology from Cybertill.
Based in the quaint West Yorkshire town of Hebden Bridge, The Old Treehouse is the brainchild of Grainne Mahon Henson, who started the business in 2004.
"We have one simple aim," she explains. "To delight, enchant and inspire. We stock covetable brands of children's clothes, toys, books, crafts and essentials. Wherever possible, we live up to our ethical and eco credentials by stocking organic and fairtrade items."
Every product is personally selected by the owner and includes collectable wooden toys, multi-ethnic toys and bilingual books. Her personal experience of the needs of premature babies has prompted her to stock a specialist range of clothing for tiny bodies, which is sold on a not-for-profit basis. A sister web site called Marsupial Mum offers information on a range of slings and is soon to sell online.
Investing in a cybertill solution
After initially operating with just a cash register, the young business invested in a complete front-office and back-office application from Cybertill.
Prompted by customer interest and by the knowledge that she could easily extend her system to manage a web site, Grainne Mahon Henson recently decided to take her business online.
"Whether instore or online, all our customers now benefit from competitive internet prices married with exceptional shop service." The web site works well for occasional visitors to the store, who can then go onto online to order.
Benefits of cybertill
The team of eight staff find that stock can be easily tracked and managed across both channels, and they always have a consolidated real-time view of sales and product status.
"This is such a boon for a small business such as ours which, nevertheless, stocks a very large number of items. Stock is so much better controlled with cybertill," says Grainne Mahon Henson.
The cybertill system also records customer addresses and tracks orders, which creates a database for use in promotions and mailings.
Other useful functions include the ability to reserve items, easily load products on the web site and display different prices, and process discounts. For example, in a recent advertising campaign in Green Parent magazine, The Old Treehouse was able to drive traffic to the web site and provide a promotional code that gave readers a discount off their purchases.
Explains shop manager, Liz Whittaker. "The system gives us real consistency and efficiency with our stock levels. It's really good to be able to produce bar codes and update stock from them, rather than having to write out labels."
Moving forward
As The Old Treehouse builds up its repository of sales and product data, it's keen to take advantage of the rich reporting facilities that the system offers.
It is also talking to Cybertill about a couple of new functions, such as offering web site payment in either sterling or euros, and letting people make a single purchase without first having to set up an account.
"Supported by our cybertill system, we can do so much more than we would otherwise have been able to," Grainne Mahon Henson concludes.