Waitrose's reputation has been built, above all, on the quality and freshness of its food. Part of the John Lewis Partnership (JLP) - one of the UK's top ten retailers boasting a turnover in excess of £5 billion - Waitrose is a supermarket with a difference. It combines the convenience of a supermarket with the expertise and service of a specialist shop.

Waitrose is also part of one of Britain's biggest and longest surviving worker co-ownerships. All 60,000 permanent JLP staff, including those working at Waitrose's estate of 184 stores, are partners in the business and share in its profits. To this end, they are dedicated to delivering superb customer service along with a first class product range and in order to support this, Waitrose recently decided to revamp its EPoS system. "Waitrose prides itself on excellent customer service and so we wanted our new EPoS system to reflect this by offering an accurate, reliable and fast service at the checkout," explained David Todd, IT Project Manager at Waitrose. "In addition, we wanted the system to be easy-to-use in order to reduce staff training time".

For the solution, Waitrose selected touchscreen EPoS terminals running VBS by PCMS and featuring Epson's multifunction printer, the TM-H6000. Offering ultra-fast receipt printing at 63 lines per second - together with single pass cheque and slip printing, and validation - Waitrose selected the TM-H6000 due to its impressive speed, performance and reliability. "The Epson printer met and exceeded all our requirements and expectations. It out-performed the competition and is also very user-friendly," commented David. Another invaluable feature for Waitrose is the TM-H6000's drop-in paper load function. "It's quick and easy to replenish receipt rolls, which is vital in any busy environment such as ours. It avoids hold-ups and helps reduce queuing time," said David.

It's estimated that the EPoS roll-out will be completed by the end of 2007 and according to Waitrose, it will provide the ideal platform for future expansion. "The new system will provide us with greater flexibility, and this will help ensure that new applications will be rolled out with ease in the future," confirmed David. "The Epson printers have given superior performance and helped enhance customer satisfaction."

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