What technologies do you use in your store?

I don't know how we ever ran the business without the computer system. From open-to-buy to receiving, everything is tied into an accounting package. We fax from our computers, do interoffice memos; we even have the copy machine online. When our computers are running, anyone can pull up reports, buyer information, the controller, whatever they need. But last November we had a malfunction and lost our inventory and accounts payable and receivable information. It's taken till June to get everything rebuilt and functioning again. We even closed the store for three days to count 100,000 items. Some time back, we also went to a bar code system, though we don't use it a hundred percent. We've also been building a Web site. It was put on hold until we got our computer functions rebuilt. So we're looking forward to starting on that again.

The ones that come to mind are the fax machine and even little things like the MasterCard swiper. We have one computer for all of our accounting and doing the dailies and the books. We have another for the pharmacy, and we have a third that we use for wholesale ordering. Before, we did everything by hand — all the books, the journal entries, the dailies. Prescriptions used to be plunked out on a manual typewriter, and we used to use something called a "fish" for wholesale ordering. It was like an overhead projector that you looked through and then manually punched in your order. Computers enable us to go a lot faster and keep much better records. It makes it a lot more professional. The technology I'm most looking forward to adding is a POS system, hopefully in the next year or two.

The computer is indispensable. We don't have a POS system but we've created our own programs to keep track of what we're selling and our inventory. I have a background in graphic design and I design all of our mailings on the computer. It allows me to e-mail my ads directly to publications. We have a color printer that we use for in-store signage and small mailings, and a scanner I use mostly for graphic design. The Internet is an amazing source of information when I need to look for something for a customer. It really does make research a lot easier, less time consuming, and fun. We've been working on and talking about adding a Web site. But we'll probably continue to work on it and talk about it because we don't have time to find the right person to do it in a cost-effective way. It's going to be used as a source of information, not for direct sales, so it's not a priority right now.

Cottura has a computerized inventory system that lets us identify stock position and locate the item in our warehouse or one of our stores. We installed the system ten years ago and find it indispensable. Our stores are active, and we have a growing catalog and mail-order department, so we need to be able to find any and all of our inventory at any time. Unfortunately, we do not have a real-time system to look up and locate inventory within our store locations. We really need this, as we will be adding new stores and it is essential for all locations to have access to inventory information. We are in the process of looking at the cost of upgrading our inventory system to bring online capabilities to all of our locations. We're on the Web, and our business is steadily growing. We look forward to adding a bridal registry component to our site.