Tobar

The Tobar business is particularly complex because of the very different skills required to be successful in both B2B and B2C markets. The diversity of Tobar’s operations had become increasingly difficult to administer with different systems controlling the different elements of the business. Continuing growth made this arrangement increasingly inefficient. Tobar chose Maginus Commerce Software in 2002 to effectively integrate all channels across both the B2B and B2C sides of the business. Since then turnover has almost doubled whilst staff numbers have remained the same.

Maginus manages both B2B and B2C relationships, allowing Tobar to offer slick customer service by ensuring that whichever sales channel a customers uses there is access to relevant information such as stock availability, order status details, returns etc.

Efficiency within the call centre has increased following the implementation of Maginus. Toby Templer, MD of Tobar commented “we haven’t significantly increased the number of staff in our call centre, yet they’re now taking more orders, faster and more efficiently. It really is a win-win situation as we’ve also been able to improve customer service levels, as sales staff have immediate access to accurate information re stock availability, account queries, returns etc”.

With the old systems, stock control had been a real headache. Maginus is designed specifically to control multi channel businesses, and with the same database controlling the whole business, including stock, the management at Tobar can optimise stock levels and gain full visibility of stock across the business.

B2C customers tend to order one off products, whilst B2B customers vary from small independent retailers to large national toyshops and department stores. Maginus allows Tobar to hold reserve stocks for larger customers who pay for the stock as it is called off, whilst B2C customer orders are handled from a separate warehouse, which can be easily replenished from the bulk warehouse.

Reducing the number of part shipments reduces costs, improves profit and customer service levels. Part shipments used to be a particular problem for Tobar, particularly in the wholesale business where they have a relatively high average number of order lines/order (around 20) and over 1000 product lines. Part shipments inevitably incur more despatch charges, although they are sometimes necessary to maintain customer service. Maginus allows Tobar to give customers a choice if all products aren’t in stock – to either wait until the stock is in or to choose part shipment. Operators have immediate access to PO details so they can accurately inform customers when the goods will be available to despatch. Toby Templer, continued “The much improved stock visibility and improved forecasting with Maginus has allowed us to significantly reduce the number of products out of stock at any one time, which has contributed to a reduction in the burden of part shipments.”

Following significant business growth and the corresponding increase in order numbers the picking and despatch department was under real pressure. Following the introduction of Maginus, Tobar expanded their warehousing facilities creating a new warehouse to handle the larger B2B orders and bulk storage and the original warehouse now handles B2C picking. The warehouse layout has been rationalised to increase picking speed and the use of barcodes scanners to route parcels and confirm picking has ensured that increasing numbers of orders can be accurately picked and despatched.

Maginus manages the transfer of stock from the bulk warehouse to the pick faces of the B2C warehouse, timely despatch of goods to the Hawkin’s Bazaar retail stores and controls the flow of stock around the business. Toby continued “increased efficiency in the warehouse has meant that we handle more orders with increased accuracy and reduced despatch time without having significantly increased staff numbers in the warehouse.”

As a result of increased picking accuracy, the percentage of returns has fallen significantly. When products are returned they can be processed much quicker and the goods either returned to stock or to the supplier and the customers credited.

Forecasting is a big issue as much of the stock is sourced overseas and there are significant time delays between placing the order and delivery. As Toby says, “Due to the seasonality of our business, we need to be as accurate as possible with our stock forecasts to ensure sufficient stock for all sides of the business without overordering. With many of our imported products having 90 days lead time, we can’t afford to make mistakes in our predictions”. Tobar use sales data from within Maginus to produce the forecasts and related purchase orders to help them achieve optimum stock holdings.

Tobar is a very seasonal business with 65% of business in the 3 months leading up to Christmas. The scalability of Maginus and the ability to quickly and easily train temporary staff on the system is vital to allow Tobar to maintain customer service in this busy period. Toby continued “Maginus is very easy to use, which means that we can train temporary staff very quickly and they make very few errors – this is essential at the peak times”.

Marketing spend is a significant cost and it is important for Tobar to be able to measure the return on each campaign in order to target future campaigns with more precision. Tobar use the media and campaign code functionality within Maginus to link orders to specific codes, measure the cost of specific campaigns and analyse the return on investment.

Tobar currently have 45 stores and plan to open 30 temporary shops leading up to Christmas. The retail stores are just another channel to market for Maginus. The EPOS tills are fully integrated with Maginus, product and stock information is automatically uploaded to the tills and sales and return details are passed from the tills into Maginus. Maginus replenishment ensures that stock transfers are automatically created to ensure that the shops carry the optimum stock levels.

Tobar is an ambitious company with plans to continue growth into the future. Toby concluded, “Maginus has helped us to achieve growth without the need to significantly increase our employee count. We fully expect it will continue to help us expand profitably into the future.”