Taking the POS Plunge: Merchants Tell Their Success Stories

Originally published: December 28, 2021

Updated: March 25, 2023 

Merchants who decide to modernize their stores with modern point-of-sale (POS) systems do so for a variety of reasons. 

• Simplify business operations. 
• Grow their business – improve performance.
• Manage their entire business from a single platform. 
• Some old-school shopkeepers grudgingly install one because their accountants use software to do their books and want the daily transactions to flow into their programs. 
• Some wouldn’t think of running a business without one. After all, it’s standard equipment nowadays, right? 

Whatever the reason, any business that sells products, takes payments, records sales, places orders, or manages inventory, customers and employees can benefit from digitizing the processes they use to make their store go. Here are a few examples of businesses that decided to add POS solutions to their stores and how their performance improved.

Simplify Business Operations, Improve Business Performance 

• Business: Coos Curry Supply 
• Location: Port Orford, Oregon

Lance Cox, owner of Coos Curry Supply in Port Orford, Oregon, is an honest, no-nonsense guy who likes to do things as simply as possible. That’s why, in 2008, when he went looking for a new point-of-sale system, he chose Paladin Data Corporation.

“Simplicity was the attraction to me,” he says. “The visuality, the graphs, the fact that I can easily look up an item and find out that I’ve sold X amount of these this year. On Paladin, I see it right there. I don’t have to do a bunch of lengthy number chasing. That’s a real convenience for me.”

Lance wanted a retail management system that was easy to set up, simple to use, and effortless for his employees to learn and operate. Paladin is simple to learn, teach and use, so training new employees takes less time. It also makes checkout counter staff more efficient, which improves customer service.

“One of our employees swore he’d never learn how to use a computer. He now teaches me how to do transactions,” Lance says with a smile.

Coos Curry Supply carries the hardware staples and it’s also the go-to store for irrigation supplies for the local cranberry growers, who produce roughly 40 million pounds of berries annually.

Paladin provides Lance with a control panel for his entire business. Paladin has features and specialty software integrations that allow businesses to manage everything from advertising and marketing to ordering and inventory, to final sales, deliveries and back-office operations.

“The inventory module, for us, has been an extremely successful part of Paladin and it’s returned dividends,” he says. “I was hoping to see a 3 to 5% increase in profit with Paladin. It was substantially more than that. If you’re looking at a return on the investment I made in Paladin, I paid Paladin back three times (that first) year.”

Tools to Help Business Grow 

• Business: Amory Hardware & Nettleton Hardware
• Location: Amory & Nettleton, Mississippi 

When Shane Wells was looking to grow his business – Nettleton Hardware – he wanted a point-of-sale solution that would handle all his retail chores. After looking around, he says he chose Paladin POS because it fits that bill.  

“You can turn a cash register into a glorified point of sale. We went with Paladin because we knew it was going to help us grow our business,” he says.  

Shane built Nettleton Hardware in Nettleton, Mississippi from the ground up. Once that new store got up and running, an opportunity for Shane’s business to grow happened in the neighboring town of Amory. Shane had moved his Nettleton store to Paladin in July 2020 and when he got ready to expand to Amory a few months later, it was an easy decision to equip his new store with the same POS system. 

“We use Paladin for everything,” Shane says, adding it works perfectly with House-Hasson Hardware, his main supplier. “It makes everything a lot easier. Communicating with our vendors is simple. I like the report system. We use sales reports a lot. It’s all easy to track.”  

Being able to keep track of both businesses is also huge for Shane. He uses Paladin’s multistore capabilities along with Paladin Pilot mobile access to know exactly how his stores are doing.  

“I’m in Amory most of the time and I’m on Paladin Pilot two or three times a day to check on Nettleton. Paladin Mobile also gives you a good snapshot of your business. It really lets you know what you have at any given time,” he explains. “I can even, if I’m on a job site, look at my inventory and check my stock and prices.” 

Manage All Aspects of Business  ​

• Business: Rosedale Town & Country
• Location: Pennington, New Jersey 

Over its first 50 years, Rosedale Town & Country focused on supplying residents of Pennington, New Jersey with feed for their livestock. But when those family farms began to be sold and developed into smaller residential parcels, Rosedale had to shift its focus. It added equine, pet and garden supplies to meet the changing clientele and it now stocks over 40 brands of pet food, which is just one example of how much the store’s inventory has grown.

The past six years have seen some of the most dramatic growth for Rosedale and store manager Elizabeth Schreiber says Paladin Data Corporation has played a role in that success. Rosedale uses Paladin’s Market Driven Inventory Management and Suggested Orders, which forecasts what products customers will be buying, to keep the store optimally stocked.

Paladin simplifies managing the store’s substantial B2B clientele, too. Rosedale provides supplies and hardware to several school districts and educational institutions including nearby Princeton University, surrounding townships, rural fire districts, and many local businesses.

Rosedale leans on PaladinNsight’s performance-focused dashboard and reports to improve its inventory management. Elizabeth says Paladin has played a huge role in helping improve the store’s performance.

“We’re using Paladin reports to find out what’s selling and what isn’t. That helps us improve our product lines and our profit. We’re really working on improving our product pricing and margins,” she says.

The store’s business improved from roughly $3.4 million in annual sales seven years ago to around $5 million in 2022. It was using Paladin for six of those seven years.

Paladin integrates with RepeatRewards which Rosedale uses to keep its loyal customers happy and attract new shoppers.

“We use it for everything. We love the streamlined accounting reports and how we’re able to generate statements. Paladin is how I collect my information,” Elizabeth says, adding that she appreciates the personalized help she gets from Paladin Support. “The individual service we get is great. We love the rep we have. We love the training we can get. The company’s energy and enthusiasm are wonderful.”

Modernize Business Operations  ​

• Business: Tri-County Hardware and Farm Supply 
• Location: Paxton, Florida 

Dennis Gamble makes no bones about it: He is not tech-savvy. So, when he went looking for a retail POS for Tri-County Hardware and Farm Supply, he wanted an easy-to-operate point-of-sale system, intuitive software that would help him in every aspect of his store, and friendly, responsive support. After quite a bit of research, he chose Paladin Data Corporation as his technology provider and his store’s first retail platform.   

Tri-County Hardware is in the tiny Florida panhandle town of Paxton, just a stone’s throw south of the Alabama border. Up until June 2018, Dennis and his wife Mary Alice ran the business a lot like a hardware store might have run over half a century ago. They used a cash register and a lot of paper and pens. So, bringing modern retail technology into their store was a little intimidating and almost like starting a new venture.   

“I’m an old codger – not very tech-minded. And, of course, I resisted change. I wanted to (keep doing business) in the shoebox. This is the first system we’ve had, and Paladin works really well for us,” Dennis says with a laugh, adding that he was so resistant to change “The new system sat on the floor for darn near a year before we got into it. But once we did, we loved it.”  

Tri-County Hardware has used HDW, Orgill and Florida Hardware as its main suppliers over the years and utilizing Paladin’s multiple EDI (electronic data interchange) connections has allowed Dennis to steadily optimize his inventory and increase his revenue. Dennis said choosing Paladin has been a great move for his business.

“They came out here, set us up, and trained everybody,” he says. “They’re a good group of people. We’ve never made a phone call to them where we weren’t satisfied.”

Starting Off on the Right Foot 

• Businesses: Buffalo Hardware Store & Olson Fuel 
• Location: Buffalo, South Dakota 

Buffalo, South Dakota is just about as simple and rural as life can get in the United States. But that doesn’t mean doing good business is easier than it is in any big city. In fact, running a successful hardware/lumber and building materials business out in the country might be harder because suppliers, technology, and even customers are scarcer. 

Those obstacles didn’t deter 24-year-old Buffalo native Sam Olson from purchasing the local hardware store and using Paladin Point of Sale technology as the foundation for what has become a multistore enterprise. 

Taking over Buffalo Hardware was almost like starting from scratch. The previous owner operated with a cash register, pen and paper. So, Sam not only had to update the technology he also had to implement an entirely new operating plan. Paladin POS helped him get a handle on his inventory, improve and set his margins, and eliminate dead stock. 

To say it was a success is an understatement. Buffalo Hardware’s sales tripled in Sam’s first year as owner and in 2019 the store notched over $2 million in sales. He attributes some of that success to how easy it was to implement Paladin and teach it to his employees. 

“We had to overcome an employee fear level – we had some with no computer skills at all. With the touchscreens, having the simplicity of Paladin and the ability to point and click – it seems just about anybody can run it, which was big,” he explains. 

Since purchasing Buffalo Hardware, Sam has opened or acquired three other businesses – Buffalo Ranch Supply, Olson Propane and Olson Fuels. He uses Paladin’s multistore capability to run all but one of his businesses and says he’ll switch that one over eventually. Paladin gives him the incredible flexibility to see how his stores run individually and as a whole.

brian bullock 

Author