3 November 2008

The Praktiker Group, one of the leading European retailers in the DIY sector, turned to Wincor Nixdorf to equip its checkouts with POS systems and provide software and services.

With over 330 stores in Germany, Praktiker is the country’s second largest DIY retailer offering products for construction, renovation, workshops, living, garden and leisure activities. Praktiker offers its customers, who range from passionate do-it-yourselfers to professional craftsmen, customised, reasonably priced and reliable solutions. The product range includes high-quality products from well known brand manufacturers as well as proven private label products known for their excellent prices and good quality. During fiscal year 2007, the Praktiker Group had net sales of approximately €4 billion. It employed 29,000 people at the end of 2007, including about 10,000 employees outside Germany. Foreign sales accounted for more than 27 per cent of its total sales.

Formerly part of the Metro Group, the company became independent two years ago before expanding to take over 76 Max Bahr stores in its homeland and opening over 80 new stores in Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Ukraine, Poland, Albania and Luxembourg. With this international expansion under its belt, and as part of a large IT harmonisation project, Praktiker wanted to standardise its checkout systems across all of its stores.

“Installation of the new checkout systems is part of a large IT project at Praktiker,” says Cristoph Diekmeyer, the group’s head of informatics and organisation. “We are harmonising and standardising all of our processes across all of the countries that we are present in, and across all sales lines. This will affect the entire value chain, from logistics to the checkout.”

In an extensive evaluation project, Praktiker compared various software solutions from several different technology providers and TP.net from Wincor Nixdorf most suited its requirements. “We chose Wincor Nixdorf as the partner for our POS project because the company impressed us with its great solution expertise and offered TP.net, a software product that has comprehensive functions and already maps the fiscal requirements of most countries,” says Diekmeyer. “A further advantage was Wincor Nixdorf’s internationality, in particular its large footprint in the countries of southeast Europe.”

We chose Wincor Nixdorf as the partner for our POS project because the company impressed us with its great solution expertise

Cristoph Diekmeyer, Praktiker Group  The TP.net software is an end-to-end platform that will provide all 420 Praktiker and Max Bahr stores with complete control and visibility at the point of sale. By using the built-in advantages of the Microsoft .NET Framework, TP.net will also allow Praktiker to respond quickly to business requirements with unprecedented ease.

“TP.net was built from the ground up using the Microsoft .NET principles,” says Dr Michael Schulte, head of retail software marketing at Wincor Nixdorf. “Its unique plug-in software and adoption model ensures that Praktiker’s POS requirements can be supported, managed and changed easily and cost effectively in the short and long term.”

In fact, continues Schulte, the solution is tailor-made for companies like Praktiker. “The software was developed specifically for international acting retailers such as Praktiker,” he says. “It is the fastest growing application in the market, and has been selected by over 45 retailers in the last 24 months, all wishing to change the customer shopping experience. Uniquely it is one of the few products that is just as powerful across the various verticals in retail – whether it be fashion, food and general merchandise or speciality produce. We’ve designed the product using our global customer experience in all of these areas.”

Schulte considers the Microsoft technology stack and core products as the ideal basis for Praktiker’s checkout solution: “Microsoft technology has allowed us to develop a state-of-the-art application which is ready to support Praktiker’s key requirements of being flexible in linking different sales and checkout processes by standard technology based integration mechanisms. The .NET platform has enabled us to create an application – which supports both common client/server and service oriented architectures – all with one product, and homogenise the overall application’s technological foundation from store to HQ. The result is a centrally managed store software platform enabling retailers to reduce their IT costs.”

Using TP.net, Praktiker will have the opportunity to implement diverse checkout concepts ranging from self-checkout and mobile shopping assistants to conventional POS workstations, without increasing the complexity of store IT and without necessitating redundant function development. Praktiker will also benefit from maximum transparency and efficiency of its processes and systems, fast responsiveness to market situations and effective realisation of corporate policy. Praktiker can further take advantage of the simple but highly effective mechanisms for integrating the system into its existing IT architecture.

Having decided which software to use, Praktiker turned its attention to its choice of hardware. The company decided in favour of the Beetle /S-II, a space-saving mini POS system with touch-screen, also from Wincor Nixdorf. “The cost and effort involved in integration was minimised because we chose the hardware and software from a single source,” says Praktiker’s Diekmeyer.

Employees can benefit from the advanced features of TP.net, which allow them to look up sales information and prices. Other functions are also supported, for example, commercial cut-ins and looking up bonus point schemes. The system can be custom-configured and, with its space-saving size, is ideal for use indoors. “New customer requirements and changes in purchasing behaviour are generating a wide range of different demands,” says Schulte. “Retailers such as Praktiker need to respond to this with new marketing concepts and sales strategies. Customers want information on the price of an article or to call up their bonus points from the customer loyalty programme. Customers must be provided with product information in such a way as to promote sales. In this regard, solutions such as TP.net are assuming a key role.”

“We hope the new checkout system will make shopping at Praktiker a much more convenient and easy experience,” says Diekmeyer. “Unlike with the old system, it will now be possible to read the customer’s card at any point during the checkout process. Moreover, the checkout software will allow for an interruption of the checkout process. If the customer forgets something, this does not mean that the whole process has to be started all over again. With the ‘parking’ function, a receipt is created which can be scanned again to continue the checkout process. The Beetle /S-II has modern touch-screens with card readers directly next to the screen and radio scanners, which all make the daily work of the checkout staff working at Praktiker easy and straightforward.”

The new checkout hardware and software rank among the most innovative and flexible systems currently available on the market. They support different checkout variants and offer countless extension options. They could, for example, be used to operate self-scanning checkouts or pay terminals.

“The solution that we are providing for Praktiker is innately prepared to support various checkout concepts by allowing service-based access on business rules for mobile shopping and sales, or by allowing API-based access on the business rules for stationary self-service concepts such as kiosks or self-checkouts,” says Schulte. “Using this technology, Praktiker is able to generate a new and convenient shopping experience as well as offering a range of ways to boost customer service.”

The new checkout system is currently being trialled in various Praktiker stores in Eastern Europe. After successful completion of the trial it will be gradually rolled out to all other stores. The uniform hardware and software will be available across the complete Praktiker Group – including its new subsidiary Max Bahr – by the year 2010. When installation has been completed, Wincor Nixdorf will be responsible for all hardware and software maintenance.

This article first appeared in the Winter 2008 edition of Retailspeak magazine.

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