Super Victoria store is in the cash & carry business for more than two decades. It’s a cash & retail chain with 3 branches. Super Victoria store uses Candela retail software to manage its retail chain business.

The LumenSoft team recently had a meeting with them to talk about the cash and carry business in Pakistan.  Javed Iqbal (the owner), and Fahad (the manager) shared their insights about the secrets to successful cash & carry business. They also talked about the role of candela retail software in the profitable running of their business.

What is the First Step for a Successful Launch of Cash & Carry Business?

If you are starting a new business, always have a financial cushion for at least one year. Business growth and profitability take time, you can’t expect immediate results.

It will be some time before your business starts making a profit. In the meantime, you need to focus upon the growth strategy for your store with peace of mind. This can only happen if you have sufficient funds that can keep you worry-free for a year or so.

What type of vendors do you recommend. For example, if you want to purchase crockery, where should you go? Should you procure supplies from companies or wholesale markets?

For grocery items, you can consider both wholesale markets, like Akbari mandi, and also various companies dealing in groceries. However, for branded products, you should always buy from the companies dealing in those products. If any product turns out to be defective, or a customer demands a replacement, the companies will cater to it.

What other factors you need to consider for profitable cash and carry?

The first is:

Wider Mix of Products & Competitive Prices

Grocery items have low-profit margins with high inventory turnover. Thus, it is important to have a wide array of product-mix. Your customers should find everything they need under one roof.

To create an ideal product mix, you need product lines of items with high inventory turnover as well as products with high-profit margins.

For example, crockery or cosmetics have low sales volumes as compared to grocery items but they have high-profit margins. Stocking up your store with the right product assortment helps you reach a wider audience and keeps your business profitable.

Another important consideration is competitive prices. The prices of the products shouldn’t be too high or too low. There is immense competition in the market, and if your prices are not competitive or too high, the customers will always have other options.

Purchase Department

Your purchase department is the backbone of your business. The procurement process involves in-depth knowledge about the various pros and cons of each product. The purchase department should be well-versed in the different aspects of procurement.

The stronger your purchase department, the more developed your business will be because there is competition in the market, and smarter purchase helps in managing costs and keeping your business profitable.

Also check: Cash & Carry Location: The 9-Step Checklist

Cash & Carry Layout Design: 11 Key Elements You Need to Know

Super Victoria Store is now using Candela Retail Software. When did you migrate to Candela and why?

To start with, as our customer load increased, management of our business operations became time-consuming and difficult. We, therefore, decided to take the help of technology to effectively run our retail business.

Actually, there was also another issue.

Our cashiers used to manage the tills manually. Usually, the cashier on the till was experienced and proficient in his job, knew the product rates, etc.

This is what used to happen. When you have, say, 4 cashiers who knew the product rates by heart, and one or two of them were on leave, we faced issues. It became extremely difficult to find a suitable replacement because cramming the rates and other product details needed time and effort. And if the cashier was on leave for long, our business suffered. Moreover, if the cashier figured out that he was indispensable, he could also blackmail us.

There was one more problem. The prices of products change almost on a daily basis and as the product quantity and lines increased, it became increasingly difficult to manually keep track of such changes. If we talk about company purchase, there is a weekly rotation of at least 300 companies from which items are procured. Managing all the different rates and percentages manually became impossible. We could not check previous rates and were unable to make comparisons.

This is when we realized we needed to modify the way we did business and adopt new technology. And we decided to take the help of retail management software.

Things started becoming manageable but we needed a more robust system. And that’s when, I still remember the name, a gentleman, Mr. Hafeez, from LumenSoft Technologies visited us and briefed us about Candela Retail software. He told us about the professional version of Candela. We did a detailed review of all Candela features, checked the reports, and used the trial version.

We realized that Candela retail software will make retail management simple and easy. So, we moved to Candela.

You started with the Professional Version of Candela. Why?

We chose the professional version because we wanted to scale our business and start a retail chain. For chain store management, we preferred Candela because of its strong centralized management features. Especially, the synchronization feature in Candela is very useful. If we make changes to products on the server, the same changes automatically become applicable on all our shops.

Before shifting to candela software, we followed a cumbersome procedure to manage price changes. If the rate of a product changed in one store, the product sample with the updated price was sent to all the shops. Every shop then updated the price.

Candela offered a very simple solution. After shifting to Candela, we only had to make the price change in the server, and prices were automatically updated at all the shops attached to the server.

There are many other reasons, but centralized management was one of the key reasons we selected Candela.

What reports in Candela have been helpful in keeping track of the retail operations of Victoria Cash & Carry?

To begin with, the sales reports. Thanks to the sales report, we can easily check our sales and know exactly what our last month sales, expense, and profit were. Before Candela, we were completely in the dark regarding our profits.

With the help of the C-11 report in Candela, we can now check our daily sales, as well as total, sales within the selected time period. Such analysis helps us plan procurements, payments, etc.

The Bincard report is another very effective report.

A few days ago, there was an issue of a missing bill whose GRN was punched. The bill was missing but we had the entry in GRN. Thanks to Candela, we could trace all the stock transactions even though the bill was missing. And if, for example, we were not using candela, this would have been a serious problem. When the bill was not found we checked the GRN and through the Bincard report we sorted out the items, their sales, and purchase. Both were reconciled and we were also able to match the physical stock with it. This was the proof that we actually did receive the stock and we were not tricked.

This is how Candela is making our lives easier.

Are you Satisfied with Candela?

Yes, of course.

I am a huge fan. Whenever I visit the market and find retailers like Breakout and others, using Candela, it makes me happy. Recently, I was at a retail store, Jeans Club. When the cashier punched the bill, I noticed he was using Candela. For me, it was a nice surprise.

Once I was at the Fazal Din pharmacy and asked for a particular medicine. The guy started searching for the medicine on the computer. When I noticed that he was using Candela pharmacy software, I told him to press F5 for search. He looked at me in surprise and asked how did I know. I smiled and told him that I was also using Candela for my business.

Would You Recommend Candela for Cash n Carry Business?

Yes, absolutely. Your life can become much easier with the help of the reporting and other features that candela has to offer. This is a fact.

Related Articles:

Cash & Carry Layout Design: 11 Key Elements You Need to Know

Cash & Carry Location: The 9-Step Checklist While Selecting Your Store Location

Cash and Carry Business in Pakistan: Its Scope and Potential

Cash and Carry Store: Procurement, Product Display & Software Selection

Cash Management Mistakes by Cash n Carry Stores & How to Avoid Them