Solution 12

Profile
With a 120-year legacy in the retail furniture business, Emerson's Furniture of Brattleboro, Vermont is the picture of tradition. The heritage-rich company, however, doesn't ignore the power of modern technologies. When store owner Peter Johnson realized an automated inventory and point of sale system could free up more time and resources for customer service, he readily set out to identify and deploy the right solution for his business

Deployment
Emerson's Furniture occupies a historic six-story building with four-inch thick wooden floors, presenting a unique challenge for implementing wireless technologies for inventory control. An integrated solution combining CipherLab authorized reseller Furniture Wizard's software with the CipherLab 8061 Bluetooth wireless terminal and scanner offered the perfect solution. The 8061 reads dual barcodes, features a back-lit display for low-light areas that can be scrolled up, down and sideways to display all item data, and has the ability to "talk" to the Furniture Wizard system from up to 300 feet away.

Emerson's Furniture's requirements for inventory have been reduced from two days and two people to one person in four hours. And with the immediate access to inventory information provided by the CipherLab 8061, Emerson's staff can now determine whether an item was in stock from the showroom floor - reducing the number of trips to the ground-floor warehouse. "Having the ability to receive instant real-time inventory information, specifically the quantity in stock, is a huge advantage for our salespeople," Johnson explained.

The CipherLab/Furniture Wizard deployment at Emerson's Furniture captured the top spot in the 2006 Small to Midsize Retail Solution Award for Best In-Store System, sponsored by Integrated Solutions for Retailers magazine.

About the CipherLab 8061 Bluetooth Wireless Terminal
CipherLab's hand-held, pocket-sized 8061 Bluetooth wireless terminal is ideal for retail applications. Class 1 connectivity to a Bluetooth-enabled wireless access point makes the terminal effective within a 300-foot radius. Lightweight yet durable, the unit offers more than 100 hours of battery operation, 2MB of data memory, and 1MB of program memory. The units easily integrate into existing networks and crosstalk with other Bluetooth-enabled devices, such as printers, PCs, and laptops.

Download pdf: CipherLab Receives National Award for Improving Customer Service and Inventory Control for Specialty Retailer Profile