Retail Solutions - Lakeland gets RBS broadband network

Homewares specialist Lakeland has signed RBS to upgrade its store systems, as it beefs up its infrastructure with broadband connections.

The in-store system to be installed across the retailer's 26-store estate replaces an EPoS solution supplied by Anker just four years ago.

The system was replaced because Lakeland was unable to upgrade it to be able to cope with its virtual private network strategy. The network uses the same technology as the Internet to get the benefits of robustness and cost efficiency. It also allows Lakeland to speed up the polling of sales data and means each store can check stock availability across the estate.

'We chose RBS because we needed an EPoS system that was euro compliant,' said Lakeland retail operations manager Mark Goodfellow.

The retailer is hoping to put in place a lay-away service, which means all orders can be called up on any tillpoint.

'The system means that we have also been able to introduce RF (wireless) networking for stock counts and price checks,' said Goodfellow. 'We also have the facility for RF tills at busy times of the year.'