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- The laborious, paper-based process produced significant numbers of errors, resulting in marked prices that didn't match advertised specials or agree with the register at check-out. Price-conscious shoppers, often mothers with young children in tow, had little patience for mistakes. And, since the lower price was generally honored, stores lost revenue.
- Famous Footwear needed a way to reduce errors and speed up the price verification process.
- "The accuracy of our pricing has gone up dramatically…and in-store staff is applauding the new system!" -Earl Fischer, VP Information Services
- About Famous Footwear
- Famous Footwear, a division of Brown Shoe Company, is the largest brand-name family shoe retailer in the U.S. Based in Madison, WI, Famous Footwear has 927 stores in 50 states. The successful chain, dedicated to providing "brand name shoes for less for the entire family," offers leading men's and women's fashion, sports-leisure and children's' brands at 10 to 50 percent savings off manufacturer's suggested retail prices.
- The Palm Handheld Solution
- Famous Footwear stores now use handhelds to ensure accurate pricing. The pricing verification application enables store personnel to determine current prices by simply scanning shoe boxes with a handheld and entering a date on its keypad.
- Handhelds connect via radio frequency (RF) to a Symbol wireless LAN station in each store, and from there via Ethernet to a Cisco router with a frame relay connection to the home office, where pricing information is maintained in a centralized database. In seconds, the handheld's browser-like display shows the correct price and the color of sticker it should be printed on. In the near future, clerks will carry a small RF printer on their belt for automatic sticker output.
- The company plans to follow its first handheld enterprise solution with at least 10 more, including real-time inventory management.
- Solution Highlights
- 75% reduction in pricing errors through real-time verification with headquarters server
- Nearly 1,000 handhelds with built-in scanners used
- Handhelds communicate via RF with wireless LANs in stores, providing access to corporate wide area network
- Browser-like display and ease of use minimize training
- Competitive Advantage
- In the competitive retail shoe market, pricing changes must be rolled out quickly to stores and executed flawlessly by in-store staff. Famous Footwear is demonstrating that handhelds and wireless LANs can significantly improve time-to-implementation. In addition, giving store employees real-time access to enterprise systems can improve coordination in other mission-critical tasks, enabling Famous Footwear to manage its widely dispersed properties as a cohesive unit.
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