Telephone +44 (0)1509 232200 Home Why Prima? Market Sectors Multi Channel Solutions Customers News About Us Contact Us Case studies Admiral Aykroyd & Sons Ltd Bristol Uniforms Chester Barrie Church's Shoes Cooneen Group Cosalt Curvy Kate Dubarry of Ireland Edward Green Forever Unique John Smedley Joules Loake Bros. Ltd Mulberry Nigel Hall Price & Buckland Rampant Sporting Start-rite Stateside Skates Stedman CC TDP Textiles The Co-Operative Clothing Wolsey Price & Buckland Price & Buckland has been an expert in schoolwear since 1959, manufacturing and supplying high quality uniforms, from blazers to hoodies and P.E kits to staffwear. Based in Nottingham, the business is renowned for having its own product development team together with a unique manufacturing capability, which allows for customers to create bespoke uniforms whilst ensuring the use of the latest fabrics and yarns available, in all products. The business’ overriding principle is to “supply high quality uniforms, in a socially responsible way, at affordable prices and support this through exceptional customer service.” Over the past 50 years, Price & Buckland has successfully achieved these aims and continues to grow at a fast pace. The Growth of Web Ordering One area of growth is the application and use of web ordering. Utilising the PrimaNet Web Services module, schools and parents alike are now able to place orders online, through a link on their individual school’s website. This then integrates directly to PrimaNet Order Management, which ensures everything is updated in real time, to show an accurate, single view of stock and customers’ orders at all times. Easy to use web ordering allows for products to be shown in many different sizes and colour ways, with prices clearly displayed, so that parents can go online and order any item that the school has authorised. Products such as polo shirts can be ordered in several different styles, including girl-fit and unisex options, and are available with bespoke embroidery for products across multiple colour-ways (e.g. sweatshirts in the schools’ ‘House’ colours). If stock of a certain product is below 10, the website will automatically show stock of that product as being low and if a product is sold out, the next delivery date is displayed, with an option to pre-order the item up to 2 weeks before it is due to be in stock. Moreover pupil numbers within schools are increasing, with Primary schools catering for up to 800 pupils and a growth in popularity of academies, which can cater for around 1,200 to 2,000 pupils each. It’s therefore understandable that many schools simply do not have the time or manpower available to process their own orders, which has made Price & Buckland’s web ordering system critically important. Given the depth of choice and variety in colours, size and products, it would be extremely difficult to maintain accurate orders and processing without PrimaNet Web Services linking the web ordering sites to the central PrimaNet Order and Stock Management systems. Having this capability means that keeping track of web orders couldn’t be simpler for Price & Buckland, as PrimaNet creates a real-time view of stock and customer orders, on one single screen. Real Evidence of Results Before PrimaNet Web Services was implemented, online ordering was a very manual process. The orders had to be printed off, input into a separate system and then the product was located, picked and eventually despatched. This process was really time-consuming, with some tasks being duplicated, which gave room for error. The time taken to process web orders is now easily 25% of that which was necessary before. Commenting on how PrimaNet Web Services has impacted on the business, Price & Buckland’s Co-Owner and Joint Managing Director, Nick Buckland says: “The benefits we’ve seen aren’t just helping us to grow, but they also really help us to achieve our business aims. Cost savings and the ability to better service our customers have been extremely effective too, and are instrumental in pushing the business forwards with our ongoing developments.” Indeed, Price & Buckland has experienced so much recent growth that it has had to purchase a new factory, which is being used to manage held stock for the increased amount of orders now being taken. Reporting and Visibility This continued sales growth has had a knock-on effect in all other areas of the business including financial management and information delivery. In a time where effective cash management is essential, the PrimaNet Credit Control module has proved invaluable for the business’ finance team, especially for creating call lists of customers to chase for payment. Business reporting has been dramatically enhanced with the introduction of the PrimaNet Business Information Manager module. It has facilitated more effective reporting on key performance indicators such as sales and margins. Also, as much of Price & Buckland’s orders are seasonal, PrimaNet Business Information Manager has been invaluable for forecasting and demand planning, as well as tracking orders through the system. Before PrimaNet Business Information Manager was implemented, it was very difficult to know what had been embroidered or not and often things would get lost. Now, there is no need for manual processes, as purchase orders and receipts are bar-coded and so can simply be scanned into PrimaNet Order Management. This makes orders centralised and easy to see, with a single view of all stock that comes and goes, on one screen. Additionally, the introduction of back to back processing, which provides the ability to automatically back sales orders to purchase orders, has proved to be extremely useful - as it allows users to see where products and orders are at all times of the sales process. Since implementation of the PrimaNet applications, Price & Buckland has found that the new processes not only save the business a great deal of time and leave far less room for error, but also create a lesser requirement for people and paperwork, which saves the business money. This has been a huge benefit to the business, especially concerning growth, as the business’ Finance Director Stephanie Clark comments: “The business couldn’t have grown to the size it is now without the system – it’s worlds apart from what we had before.” The Prima Business Partnership Having worked with Prima Solutions for over a decade, Price & Buckland remains happy with all of its PrimaNet software, as throughout the business partnership, the PrimaNet solution has been continually invested in and so continues to adapt and grow, along with Price & Buckland’s new products and additional channels. Speaking about Price & Buckland’s experience of working together with Prima Solutions, Nick says: “We wouldn’t want to work with anyone else. Our Account Manager at Prima has always listened to us when we needed something and is always on hand to offer help and advice, as well as to keep us up to date with the latest technological innovations. The product and people are great – we fully expect Prima to continue to be at our side as we continue to develop further, long into the future.” I'm interested in solutions for: Please select... Footwear Clothing Bags & accessories Sports and Leisure Workwear & corporate Contract News. HR Denne streamlines its business processes with PrimaNet Read more ©2013 Prima Solutions Ltd. Terms and Conditions. Privacy Statement. Blog Twitter Facebook A buffalozoomedia project.