One of the Premiership’s most ambitious clubs, Leeds United Football Club has made a remarkable journey from Division One to the semi-finals of the European Champions League in the space of just ten years.

A significant proportion of Leeds’ financial resources comes from the Club’s thriving merchandising operation (in addition to television contracts and gate receipts). On a typical match day, the Club’s Stadium Superstore will process between 3,000 and 5,000 transactions.

In order to maximise the return from its retail operations and increase operational efficiency, Leeds has invested in a new retail management solution from North London based Esperus Systems, running on Epson’s high performance touchscreen Intelligent Register (IR).

“We wanted a far more usable system,” explained Leeds’ IT Manager, Charmaine Doherty. “Previously our till operators had to memorise hundreds of PLU codes and frequently individual items were ascribed to an all purpose ‘dump bin’. The new touchscreen tills and barcode scanners are much more intuitive for our staff, enabling them to quickly identify products by a jpeg image on-screen, for example. There’s no need for a ‘dump code’, and because the system works in real time, we can determine exactly what has been sold at any point in the day and accurately monitor stock levels.”

The touchscreen technology has revolutionised Leeds club stores, believes Charmaine. The IR terminals have halved the time it takes to process transactions, improving productivity and significantly reducing the length of the queues during busy times.

“Another major benefit is the improved reporting capabilities,” added Merchandising Development Manager, Drew Mullin. “Where once we had to re-enter data into an Excel spreadsheet before we could analyse it, we can now use the software to create all the stock valuation and sales reports, we need for accurate forecasting.”

The Esperus system has now been live since June 2001 with fourteen terminals at the Elland Road superstore, four in the Leeds City Centre shop and two each at the stores in The White Rose Shopping Centre and Wakefield. Another three IRs can be operated as standalone tills so Leeds have the option to set up additional terminals around the stadium for major events, such as a new kit launch. Sales data can then be downloaded to the network at the end of the day.