Rangers FC scores with improved retail systems

Rangers Football Club has invested in technology from VcsTimeless to improve supply chain efficiency and checkout operations.

The club's 16 shops turn over£26 million, and a new shop opens at Glasgow Airport this week. The 5,000 sq ft (465 sq m) superstore at the stadium sees wide fluctuations in demand, especially during home games.

Rangers retail operations director Gerry Carey said: 'The superstore has 16 tills arranged like a supermarket. On a normal day we use three or four, but on match days it's all of them. The touchscreens mean transactions are much quicker, queues are down and turnover is up. We can also do quick till and product analysis, so things like staff bonuses are much quicker to work out.'

Carey said that back-office systems, which had previously required 'a bit of guesswork', were now more accurate and robust, checking stock levels every couple of hours rather than overnight. He said there had been a degree of change required, but overall the project had gone smoothly.

'There have been changes for merchandising and buying too: the new system means we can create our own reports which lets us analyse what we want to analyse rather than just getting what the system offers.'

Chip and PIN equipment is also in place, but is not yet switched on.