retail solutions customer: Karl's Mega Sports

If you’re into sport, and you live in Victoria, the name Karl’s Mega Sports is sure to be familiar. A locally owned family business, Karl’s is the number one sports and surf retailer in all of its locations. In 2007, the company recognised a need for increased efficiency, accountability and control across the organisation. They were looking for ‘an affordable end-to-end solution that was also very competitively priced’. Markinson responded to this need with a blended retail solution using Shopkeeper for retail management and a QlikView interface for business reporting and analytics.

This integrated functionality has allowed Karl’s to gain total control of their operations, from point of sale to financials, sales, loyalty, inventory and reporting. Consultant and CFO for Karl’s Mega Sports, Darren Moncrieff explains, “In a business buying consumer goods, profitability is determined by the successes of buyers. The solution enables us to set, track, target and report on Key Performance Indicators. Great buying decisions mean efficient sell-through, which flow straight through to the bottom line.”

“The Markinson solution has taken us through a stage when we needed to operate more tightly with greater visibility of numbers. By putting the right systems in place, we’ve achieved competitive advantage by using information to stay ahead of the game.”

Having been a customer of Markinson for over 10 years, and compared Markinson’s solutions with competitors, Mr Moncrieff offers this advice for other growing retail businesses,

“There’s nothing as user friendly in the market for this price. It’s so much faster and better than anything Quickbooks, SAP or SUN could offer. The Markinson team provide personal service and are responsive to our needs,” he says, “They work with us as a business partner, and we rate the relationship highly.”

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