Soon after George Karamitos decided to open a surf and skateboard store in Daytona Beach, Florida in 1989, he realized that he was getting into a much more sophisticated retail climate than his family’s previous Tshirt shop.
Now Maui Nix needed to make quarterly purchases, conduct inventory projections, and anticipate demand. They tried to keep track of the business manually as they had in the past with the resort shop, but this soon proved to be too big of a challenge.
George’s retail consultant advised him to get a good automated store enterprise system to manage and analyze the activity in the new shop.
With it, he could project sales; purchase inventory accurately by using the open-to-buy tool; and manage all the distinct categories of product Maui Nix carried, including apparel, skateboards, surf boards and sandals. Maui Nix began buying quarterly and projected the business out as accurately as possible to avoid shortfalls or excess inventory.
Then as Maui Nix initiated their growth plans, that early retail solution became less and less responsive to their needs.
After comprehensive research and evaluation, Maui Nix found UTC RETAIL’s Merchant application contained the depth and breadth of functionality missing from their previous solution with the added advantage of a no fee Gift Card application.
UTC RETAIL’s Merchant software helped Maui Nix gain tighter control over inventory and keep a closer view on revenue to help maintain profitability. Now they easily maintain their margins; reduce inventory stock to sales; and have increased inventory turns from 1.8 to 3.0 per cycle.
Maui Nix manages inventories in all shops by categorizing each product as if it was a separate store. The shops have 36 classes of business categories, such as men’s and women’s sportswear, Tshirts, accessories, hard goods, and footwear.
Keeping track of the categories has enabled Maui Nix to analyze what is selling throughout their enterprise, and plan according to the current fashion and buying trends they see from their customers’ purchases.
Maui Nix is a true success story, demonstrating the move from a traditional resort shop – using manual tracking and analysis – to a fully automated merchandising application in a fleet of eight successful surf and skateboard shops across Florida and North Carolina.
Maui Nix continues to grow, and in their words they are “dedicated to bringing our customers both the cutting-edge and classics in fashion, boards, and accessories. We are proud to feature well over 100 different surf and skate brands that lead the trends in our industry.”
If you are considering a technology upgrade call on the retail experts at UTC RETAIL who will meet with you to understand your business challenges and help develop a path forward to keep you in the game. Call 1-800-349-0546 and ask to speak to one of our retail specialists.
This article is excerpted from our Maui Nix case study. Click on the link to get the full report.
Kurt Ramcharan is the Director of Marketing and Business Development at UTC RETAIL. Kurt has spent over 5 years in the retail technology field with a background in business development, market research, and strategy development.
