Premium Oil: Mix and Match Solution Fuels Company’s Sales Growth
Julie Hardy, Operations Director for the Premium Oil Company headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, is always on the lookout for ways to improve the company’s 14-site c-store enterprise.
Hardy knows increasing productivity is key to a healthy bottom line in the state-of-the-art shopping destinations that include convenience stores, fast-food franchises, leasing opportunities and gasoline pumps. To help achieve the company’s profitability goals, Hardy and her team partnered with Service Station Computer Systems, Inc. (SSCS) and Gilbarco Veeder-Root.
SSCS provides Premium Oil the Computerized Daily Book (CDB) convenience store back office system, while Gilbarco Veeder-Root’s Passport® handles business on the point-of-sale (POS) side. This winning combination makes tracking, selling and marketing store merchandise faster and easier—precision inventory management control that makes life easier for Hardy and her staff.
“We knew we needed a more updated, progressive and adaptable c-store back office system if we wanted to gain control over our bottom line,” says Hardy. “There is no question that the choice of the CDB and Passport is the most progressive decision we have ever made.”
Turnkey Mix and Match Solution
For Premium Oil, part of the solution’s appeal is its turnkey multi-item promotion program, capable of handling both Mix and Match (multi-unit volume discounts for like items with different U.P.C.’s) and Combo promotions (non-like items offered at a special “combination” price when sold together). The multi-item promotions feature enhances inventory management control because each item sold as part of a pro-motion is recorded accurately; adjustments do not have to be made after the fact.
“The program drastically reduces the risk of cashier error which translates into more accurate record-keeping and precision price management,” Hardy states. “Premium Oil’s marketing strategy is based on competitive pricing that drives volume but maintains maximum ring per customer. Multi-item promotions flow into this; our steady inside sales growth reflects it.”
Because the CDB provides central price book control from virtually any site, the process of upgrading the Passport touch screen as costs, retail prices and promotions change is easy and invisible to the cashier. Adds Hardy: “SSCS and Gilbarco Veeder-Root provide tight inventory management control, while enhancing the customer experience—shoppers can physically see the items they purchased discounted at the register. It’s the kind of tool a business needs to prosper in today’s challenging economic times.”
Tee Jay Oil: Gaining New Efficiencies with CDB and Sunray Cloud Computing
Tejinder “T.J.” Grewal and Jagdeep “J.D.” Saran, of Tee Jay Oil, have been partners in the convenience store business since 1998. The brothers-in-law started with two convenience store locations in Oregon. In 2004 the men and their families took advantage of an expanded opportunity in Chandler, Arizona, just outside of Phoenix. The hard-working, but fun-loving duo now own and operate eight Tee Jay Oil store locations and plan to add more.
The Computerized Daily Book (CDB) back office system from SSCS allows T.J. and J.D. to carefully monitor and maintain control over their c-store network even as it has grown in size and complexity. CDB provides the detailed inventory management control required and helps ensure the enterprise continues to provide top-notch customer service, a high priority to the partners.
T.J. and J.D. moved to SSCS’s cloud-computing platform, Sunray, in 2002. With SSCS hosting and administrating their software through Sunray, the two men found they could leverage their time more effectively for the benefit of their business.
“With Sunray we can log into any of our store locations from anywhere with an Internet connection,” says T.J. “This gives us the chance to audit the work at the store level without having to drive to a specific location. This business requires so many hours of your time that it’s important to use what you have as efficiently as possible. We can offload some of the daily responsibilities to our store managers without losing the control we need to monitor a high cash flow business.”
SSCS has a fully dedicated support team whose sole job is to assist current customers with questions. The company staffs its own development team that works diligently to update the back office software and enhance its capabilities.
“The system has always given us a solid ‘backbone’ to gauge our profitability as we manage our way to grow our business,” J.D. states. “SSCS keeps us well-informed and up-to-date with new versions of its CDBWin back office software. Some of the most recent enhancements that we find useful include the ability to program promotions on our point-of-sale systems and several new reporting capabilities.”
Tee Jay Oil provides one more example of how CDB and Sunray cloud computing combine to add efficiencies to the modern c-store multi-site operation.