The company
Present in the market for more than 40 years, BUT is a major player with more than 300 furniture, home décor, home-appliance and kitchen stores. BUT offers a highly specialised range comprising a wide selection of products and services at very competitive prices, aiming to deliver the best customer service, online or in stores, through its two store formats: BUT Classiques and BUT Cozy.
The challenges
Supporting BUT's omnichannel strategy to deliver the best service to customers
The company wanted to offer customers a better shopping experience and support the growth of its in-store and online sales. BUT aims to offer customers more convenience and speed while steadily advancing its omnichannel strategy.
Gaining IT agility and reducing maintenance complexity
Because of rapidly changing market requirements, BUT needed a new store solution offering greater agility to adapt to its specific needs, to evolve faster and at lower cost in existing and new stores, and that would reduce maintenance complexity and the associated costs.
Making integration with existing systems easier
BUT's processes previously ran on a number of legacy systems that required a new platform with far stronger integration capabilities.
Openbravo has become a key tool for advancing our omnichannel strategy, and our stores are now able to play a new role in meeting increased online demand by acting as fulfilment points. The solution is also essential for delivering the in-store experiences our customers demand, including personalised assistance anywhere in the store and more convenient delivery and checkout-payment options. It also opens the door to new contactless scenarios, which are now becoming a priority for retailers looking to offer safer in-store experiences.
Max Dragone, CIO of BUT
The solution
Full point-of-sale functionality tailored to different in-store scenarios
Openbravo Store provides BUT with a complete point-of-sale component whose flexibility allows the company to support different in-store scenarios. These include standard payment terminals where payments are processed, loyalty terminals to validate in real time the option of offering a customer a Cetelem card, and dedicated after-sales terminals for managing returns and exchanges.
Mobile clienteling solution
The mobile WebPOS solution is being rolled out in stores. Sales associates are equipped with mobile devices and can now assist customers more effectively thanks to a clienteling solution giving them access to the full point-of-sale functionality as well as additional features for enhanced assisted selling. Features such as fast, intuitive catalogue browsing, access to multiple product images and to the ratings and reviews left by online customers, and the ability to take payment or reserve the order to be paid at the till.
Associates can, at any time, project product images onto larger screens around the store instead of showing them on a small screen, providing a more convenient experience for customers. The solution also leverages Openbravo's skin capabilities, which make it possible to add, rearrange, hide or resize elements of the POS user interface to better fit the needs of the customer experience.
Multiple delivery options and payment methods
Customers at the till can now choose from various delivery options such as self-service, transport (with the option to hire vans or lorries directly from the point of sale) and home delivery (with a scheduled date), and they can choose from several payment methods: credit cards, gift vouchers, Cetelem (micro-loans), Customer Balance and gift cards and gift certificates.
Order preparation and management from mobile devices
Where an order needs to be prepared in the store's warehouse, the associate at the till can automatically launch the order preparation process. The order goes straight to the team in charge of order preparation in the back office. The solution offers intuitive, easy-to-use functionality to manage the entire preparation process. Tasks such as picking can easily be assigned to associates on their mobile devices until the task is finally completed and the goods are delivered to the customer or to the delivery area for transport. Large screens in the preparation area let customers know when the order will be ready for collection.
Omnichannel fulfilment
Stores can now receive online orders that are prepared using the order-preparation capabilities described above, to respond faster and more efficiently to omnichannel scenarios, including Click & Collect, home delivery after an online purchase, and Curbside Pickup.
Associates in the preparation area are notified of new incoming orders on their devices so they can identify and prepare them more easily.
The results
Deployed in more than 300 stores
The solution has been deployed in more than 300 stores. BUT uses more than 4,000 point-of-sale terminals and has over 7.2 million customers.
Enhanced customer service
Store associates can now provide more personalised and convenient services to customers, anywhere in the store. This ranges from registering an order in a department to be paid later, to assisting customers from mobile devices with full clienteling capabilities, or handling returns and exchanges more easily at dedicated terminals. Multiple delivery and payment options also provide a more convenient payment experience.
Efficient omnichannel support and faster order preparation
Orders placed online are now received directly in stores, which can act as fulfilment centres. Dedicated back-office staff can easily identify and manage these orders to ensure they are delivered on time.
In-store and online orders can now be prepared faster thanks to intuitive, easy-to-use order-preparation functionality, with tasks such as picking that can be carried out from mobile devices. Associates at the tills can also automatically launch order preparation, reducing waiting time for customers.
Faster roll-out of new products and promotions
Openbravo's unique architecture makes it easier to roll out new products and promotions faster across multiple sites, which can now be updated centrally and pushed to all stores in near real time.
Simplified integration
Openbravo's advanced interoperability capabilities have allowed BUT to reduce the complexity and cost of all the required integrations with existing systems. Key integrations include the central ERP, stock management, customer and loyalty databases (integration of the custom loyalty module with Cetelem) and reservations. Openbravo is also integrated with company-specific applications designed to manage EDI standardisation and configuration.
