How Al's Garden & Home is Meeting Today's Business Challenges
Overview
Celebrating its 75th anniversary, Al’s Garden & Home started as a humble fruit stand and has grown into four retail stores and an ecommerce business. Today, its nurseries and greenhouses locally produce over 80% of the plants, trees, and shrubs that the Portland, OR based garden center sells.
Much of the growth and success of the business originally known as Al’s Fruit Stand is credited to Al’s middle son, Jack Bigej, who introduced plants in addition to fruit, taking a significant first step toward the thriving, multi-location garden center that the fruit stand would evolve into.
Now a third-generation family business, Al’s chief financial officer is Jack’s daughter, Darcy Ruef, who talked about the garden center’s changing technology needs throughout its expansion. Growing from one store to two in 2004 and adding a third store in 2005, Al’s saw a terrific growth surge and would open a fourth retail location in 2018.
The Challenge
As Al’s invested in new locations and facilities, POS technology wasn’t always the top priority. After 20 years, Al’s moved from a POS system that was well integrated but lacked speed and connectivity. The newer system solved some of those issues but introduced new ones.
Staying current in the fast-paced tech world can be challenging in any industry.
“Keeping up with technology in the garden center business was tough,” Ruef admitted. “Investing in tech wasn’t always a priority since we had other pressing needs like building greenhouses and opening new stores. So, technology often got pushed to the bottom of the list.”
After two decades, almost any technology will be outdated. The management team at Al’s knew there was room for improvement, but when they eventually upgraded, the new provider was unable to support multiple locations.
Customer Profile
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The Pain Points
Due to system limitations, three out of four stores operated in offline mode, hindering real-time business operations and customer service.
In addition to operational inefficiencies, there were security and compliance concerns: Maintaining on-site server solutions posed risks regarding data security, compliance with PCI requirements, and backups.
“We started with Counterpoint from a different provider, but they couldn’t handle multiple stores. We had to operate three of the four stores in offline mode, so the functionality just wasn’t there to run actual full retail,” Ruef said “You don’t have any live inventory. You can’t make transfers or track your inventory. You can’t be in one store and say, ‘Oh, let me see if another store has that,’ because the inventory wasn’t live to the minute that you’re looking at it. There were quite a few things that we couldn’t do as a store daily.”
Al’s switched to RCS Aero cloud services, a scalable cloud-based data solution that includes 24/7 monitoring, disaster recovery, SQL enterprise licensing, and enterprise-grade security. Aero ensures high performance with load balancing, redundancy, and regular backups. It supports seamless scalability, making it easy to add or remove locations. With compliance to PCI requirements, anti-virus protection, and extensive support, Aero enhances operational efficiency and security for businesses.
“We have four stores, and we regularly need to transfer inventory from one store into the other, and the ease with which you can take an item, create a transfer, and just take it to the other store is incredible,” Ruef said. “We used to have to wait for those to post at the end of the day, which could create problems.”
“Also, there were many things that you couldn’t do at the registers, like charging supplies for use in-store. You’d have to go into the back office. Now we can do that thing from the register, which makes a difference on a busy Sunday.”
While on-site DIY server solutions may be less expensive up front, the consequences of falling behind on physical maintenance and backups, let alone compliance and security issues, can be catastrophic.
RCS Aero Cloud Services
By implementing RCS Aero Cloud Services, Al’s was able to integrate all of its locations and manage live inventory in real time. The cloud-based system removes concerns about maintaining an on-site server, including security, backups, and compliance. Along with enhanced operational capabilities, RCS provides comprehensive support and security 24/7.
“We don’t have the risk of having the server on-site and maintaining all of the firewalls, and it’s great that we don’t have liability regarding credit card data,” said Ruef. “Plus, if our internet goes down, we seamlessly just go into backup, and the minute the internet comes back up, everything we did just uploads. It’s seamless, and we don’t always know it’s happening, which is great.”
Providing much more than just hardware and software, RCS Aero takes away the stress of maintaining an on-site server with redundant, up-to-the-second cloud-based backups. Dedicated, single-tenant hosting means your business isn’t sharing bandwidth with anyone, and Aero’s data centers are based in the US.
A team of experts monitors and updates compliance, antivirus, and security issues around the clock, and the RCS customer service experience is second to none.
Security and Peace of Mind
“We don’t have the risk of having the server on-site and maintaining all of the firewalls, and it’s great that we don’t have liability regarding credit card data,” said Ruef. “Plus, if our internet goes down, we seamlessly just go into backup, and the minute the internet comes back up, everything we did just uploads. It’s seamless, and we don’t always know it’s happening, which is great.”
Support & Reporting When you Need it Most
“Any time we need help, they’re on it and very professional,” said Ruef. “That always helps because we’re not necessarily IT people, so it means a lot to have someone that knows what they’re doing. There’s never any need to second guess the solutions they come up with for us, which hasn’t always been the case with other systems.”
Al’s Garden & Home is a large retailer with complex needs. In addition to its four state-of-the-art retail stores, the business maintains multiple greenhouses, nurseries, and even a cafe. Thanks to a third-party reporting integration, Ruef can monitor any aspect of the business in real time.
“RCS has signed us up with a new reporting tool, and we’re excited about the instantaneous reporting that will come out of that. It is mobile-friendly, and we’ll be able to log in anytime from anywhere and see how the stores are doing,” Ruef said.
Let Us Boost Your Retail Efficiency
To learn more about RCS Aero's suitability for retailers requiring third-party integrations, advanced reporting tools, and direct data access, request a demo.
