Since day one we’ve used Brightpearl, and have never felt the need to change it. We have five or six people whose role is solely based in Brightpearl, and we’ve tailored many of our internal systems around its capabilities – so at this point we simply wouldn’t run our business any other way.
– Joss Barton, Head of Operations at Bouncepad
You’ve likely seen the steady increase in ‘tablet kiosks’ in recent years; a customer is presented with a touchscreen tablet when completing a sale instead of being served at a traditional till. These days they’re a prolific feature in cafes, restaurants, retail outlets, ice cream vans, reception desks and museums all over the world.
One of the leading UK brands for tablet kiosks and supplies, Bouncepad, just saw its best year of business, despite the clear struggles that have faced retail. For over a decade, the multichannel B2B merchant has sat at the forefront of point-of-sale technology while using Brightpearl by Sage to power its complex operational processes. Head of Operations at Bouncepad, Joss Barton, says he couldn’t imagine day-to-day life without it.
FRONT OF HOUSE
Joss Barton is Head of Operations at Bouncepad, and he’s seen how the usage of tablet kiosks has changed. Once a technological privilege of huge corporations, using a ‘tablet kiosk’ is now an everyday occurrence for customers, offered by even the smallest of boutique stores, coffee shops and food vans.
“In the early days of Bouncepad, only big businesses were buying this kind of stuff,” says Joss. “One of our biggest clients is McDonald’s in the UK, for example – they have about 6,000 tablet units out in the wild. We did a rollout for Clinique, Converse; lots of big brands, and that was all part of the ‘old school’ B2B world.
“In the last few years, use cases have changed. Small and medium businesses have switched from traditional till systems to using tablets such as iPads; and the second biggest use case is visitor registration.
“When GDPR came in you technically weren’t allowed to write your details in a book, it was too visible. Now visitor registration apps are huge and you sign in on a tablet. Even in doctors’ surgeries and schools where GDPR is taken incredibly seriously, there’s a huge market for tablets there, too.”
Bouncepad ships everything out of the UK but markets domestically and internationally to the UK, Canada, the USA, Germany and France. Manufacturing is outsourced via supply chains but all design, product innovation, customer service, warehouse and fulfilment operations are done in-house. Though it’s considered somewhat of a niche B2B market, sales are strong across all countries – around 65 percent of Bouncepad’s revenue comes from international sales.
“Our bread and butter is the tablet kiosk, which counts as a bundle as there’s a number of working parts per product,” says Joss.
“We have around 17 products, but with all the variants such as different colors, backs, sizes and covers and so on, it means we have to manage around 3,000 SKUs. That’s a lot to track when it comes to stock allocation, and that’s where Brightpearl really helps.”
PRODUCTIVE SCREEN TIME
Bouncepad has benefited from Brightpearl’s out-of-the-box features from the early days of the business. The Brightpearl operating system seamlessly integrates with the brand’s existing tech stack – comprising leading apps such as Shopify Plus, Shipstation and Amazon – using its world-class library of Plug & Play integrations.
“The integration with Shopify is key, if it couldn’t do that we’d have a huge problem. When we set it up we didn’t need to make a custom connector, which was great,” says Joss.
The merchant also heavily relies on Brightpearl for accounting and reporting – as with Brightpearl as its central source of truth, Bouncepad receives up to date, accurate insights in real time across its entire business – eliminating the need for hefty, error-prone spreadsheets and hours spent on manual calculations.
“Essentially Brightpearl is our accounting software,” Joss says. “All of our annual expenditure runs through it.
“I have 12 years worth of revenue data from Bouncepad, and there’s a lot of importing and exporting this data through Brightpearl that I simply couldn’t do with a spreadsheet system. It would be an absolute nightmare.”
With such a vast number of SKUs due to bundles and variants, the brand relies on Brightpearl’s streamlined purchasing and inventory workflows to track constantly fluctuating stock levels.
“It offers a very streamlined system to manage stock going out and stock going in,” says Joss. “We store all of our SKUs on Brightpearl and that syncs with all of our other systems, meaning we can purchase and sell stock through it, and when a purchase order is pending it allocates stock accordingly.
“This also helps us avoid stockouts, as with such up-to-date, dynamic data we’re able to honour the dates we promise customers.”
Brightpearl’s Automation Engine has also been greatly beneficial – as it streamlines and automates manual processes in ordering, inventory, warehouse, shipping and fulfilment.
For Bouncepad, automation helps clean up the small tasks that use staff time, so they can redirect attention to growth and product innovation. For instance, opting to go without 3PL in the warehouse, Bouncepad staff use barcode scanners to pick and pack its complex bundle items, and the inventory data updates through Brightpearl in real time.
Finally, Brightpearl’s 24/7 customer service gives Joss and the team peace of mind that their queries will always receive a quick response.
“We use the support team a lot and they always email back within a day – in a very short amount of time you can be on the phone to someone who really knows their stuff.
Basically I don’t know how we’d work without Brightpearl – we’ve used it from day one and never felt the need to change it.
“We have five or six people whose role is solely based in Brightpearl, and we’ve tailored many of our internal systems around its capabilities – so at this point we simply wouldn’t run our business any other way.”
SWIPE FOR GROWTH
Despite facing the challenges of so many businesses in the e-commerce world, the outlook for Bouncepad is sky high – and only looks to get better with the growing popularity of the tablet kiosk.
“We just came off the back of our best year ever, not just in revenue but with where the business is at,” says Joss.
“Off the back of Brexit and Covid which were both awful for us, revenue is now good – our customers are getting more and more diverse, new products are being developed and we have the operational mechanisms in place to keep going.
“The focus for Bouncepad is cementing our position on international markets and developing some exciting new product lines, and with Brightpearl’s continued support, we know that it’s more than possible.”
To see how the Brightpearl retail operating system could transform operations for your multichannel e-commerce business, book a demo with us today.
