Since it was established in Cumbria 40 years ago, Lakeland Limited has become a byword for innovation and practicality in the home. Its catalogues are distributed to over one million addresses worldwide and the business dispatches around 6,000 parcels every day.

In addition to mail order, Lakeland Limited also has an expanding retail business with 26 busy stores across England, Wales and Scotland. Naturally, clear pricing and promotions are an important means of increasing basket size. However, until 2003, the company had been reliant on pre-printed shelf-edge tickets - overprinted in black - to communicate its pricing message to customers. It was increasingly difficult to create new formats and respond to the need for different layouts in each store.

Lakeland Limited's Retail Operations Manager, Mark Goodfellow commented: "We wanted to find a package that was easy for the user to operate at store level. We also wanted a system which we could develop over time -introducing more designs, for example, or having the ability to incorporate graphics. It also had to fit in with our overall systems development strategy and particularly our Virtual Private Network (VPN)."

To meet this need, Lakeland Limited invested in an instore ticket printing solution from Eastman-POS Limited, a Surrey-based company that specialises in software solutions and bureau services for retail ticketing. The solution, net.tickIT, centrally manages data and designs which are downloaded to stores for local merging prior to print. Lakeland Limited required new instore printers and chose Epson Aculaser C900 colour laser printers and perforated stock. The C900 was specifically recommended for its small footprint and compact design, ideal for the back office where space is at a premium.

Any changes which are made to product description or price on the master product file are imported into the central net.tickIT system. The central system then creates a file of the changes, including a description and two price points (there are plans to use product specific graphics on future ticketing). This is sent to each Lakeland Limited store via the VPN and imported to a net.tickIT in-store system. Using store profiling, a variety of ticket styles can be printed on the Aculaser to suit local fixtures.

Lakeland Limited stores can easily produce the tickets they need in the current or promotional style. Each store has been given user rights to change the size of tickets but not the text or price. However, a 'Manager's Special' format has been created which allows the creation of a temporary ticket (which cannot be saved) for immediate printing.

Mark Goodfellow commented: "From a retail perspective, it enables us to develop a promotional calendar with seasonal offerings throughout the year and gives stores the ability to produce their own ticketing. This dramatically reduces our costs as tickets would otherwise have to be screen-printed. It also enables stores to control their own promotions. We provide a selection of designs to choose from and they can respond to local trends."