Interest in specialist skincare, cosmetics and fragrances is at an all time high among British women. Initially only available through mail order and the Internet, once esoteric brands such as Lush, Philosophy and L’Occitane are now more widely available and compete with both commodity toiletries such as L’Oreal and Synergie and traditional premium brands, including Lancôme and Estée Lauder. Indeed, in the last couple of years, new stores - Pure Beauty and Sephora, to name just two - have been opened to cater for this expanding market.

Another example, this time devoted to selling its own-brand products, is French-owned L’Occitane en Provence, which has over 250 stores worldwide and a rapidly expanding presence in the UK – currently nine stores with another eight planned by the end of the year. An ever-present feature in the lifestyle magazines, L’Occitane’s combination of trained beauty consultants to advise and sell products and the use of natural ingredients, such as lavender and other essential oils, has already proved a great success.

In order to continue its expansion to new and larger sites, however, L’Occitane recognised the need to invest in a new retail IT solution, which would be easy to use, provide comprehensive sales and management reports and integrate seamlessly with both its financial systems and central warehouse. After a careful evaluation by IT Consultant, Lorraine Lockhart, L’Occitane selected MiniPOS Professional software from Oxfordshire-based Niche International. Following a successful six-month pilot at the company’s Bayswater store, the solution has been rolled out to all its outlets where it has been enthusiastically received by staff.

“The new system is based on touchscreen technology and uses intuitive icons and colour displays. This means that while we have a number of consultants for whom English is not a first language, they can still easily recognise what they need to do to process the transaction,” explained Lorraine Lockhart. “Combined with new hardware such as scanners and fast Epson thermal receipt printers (the TM-T88II), our customers can benefit from the same exceptional service at the point of sale, as they receive throughout the store.”

In addition to equipping L’Occitane with all the reporting options it requires - the success of its limited period seasonal products, for example - the Niche solution also provides complete stockholding details across all the stores, enabling the company to automate the ordering process from its central warehouse. Altogether, believes Lorraine Lockhart, MiniPOS represents the ideal platform for L'Occitane's future expansion and development, including a planned customer loyalty scheme, which will utilise the system's database application.