Mothercare International
55 countries, 38 currencies, 35 languages
Mothercare is a household name in the UK with stores located out of town and on high streets, they offer the widest range of clothing for mums-to-be, babies and pre-school children, together with toys and hardware such as pushchairs, carrycots and car seats for the pre-school child in the UK. Overseas, Mothercare operates franchises in 51 countries primarily in Europe, the Middle East and the Far East.
Brand consistency
Sustaining a consistent corporate brand image across so many countries is not an easy task, particularly for the wide range of price and offer tickets that are required in so many languages. Some countries have one to two shops whilst others have up to forty. The cost of producing local accurate POS (Point of sale) was becoming increasingly expensive and difficult to sustain. So when Mothercare introduced their On-line Data Management System (ODMS) for the upkeep of their catalogue and marketing images, it presented an easy vehicle for providing the franchises with a library of POS for their shop display needs.
Simplify
Pierhouse has been producing the shelf edge labelling for the UK stores. Using the buyer’s spreadsheets, Pierhouse were able to flow the data into the templates. This automated the artwork creation enabling the franchises to print sets of labelling specific to the grade of store. It was a simple step to prepare this data for online access by the overseas countries. What was needed was an easy way for franchises to select and print any POS they chose when accessing the ODMS. To achieve this Mothercare worked with Pierhouse to use NetTickIT to create a dataset of all product details that could be merged with locally held currency templates to suit the local POS print requirement. Five A4 stationery types have been designed with pre-printed areas in the corporate livery and perforated to suit the various POS sizes. Franchises overprint the product details and prices for all the sizes of POS they require using their own printers.
Priorities
There were three important considerations. Firstly, that online time would be kept to a minimum; secondly, that downloaded details could be translated into the local language and thirdly, that the whole process was simple to use.
The franchises were provided with the NetTickIT web system containing all the local POS templates, currency formats and brand graphics. Updates to products are published as the new season's lines become available.
Once NetTickIT was installed, the franchisee logs on to select their currency templates icon. As the products are automatically grouped by category and linked to their correct template style for viewing, it is an easy task to translate and edit in the NetTickIT screens. Each country then add their local retail prices prior to print. NetTickIT will collate like POS sizes together and compile full pages before printing. This minimises stationery changes and wastage.
The NetTickIT system is currently installed in Bahrain, Belgium, Brunei, Cyprus, Czech Republic , Gibraltar, Greece, Hong Kong, Ireland, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Malta, Nigeria, Oman, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, U.A.E. and China. The reception to this approach has been extremely enthusiastic. The whole cycle of POS creation and print has become streamlined, locally accessible and cost effective.