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Hotel Retail Shops Can Have the Same Purchasing and Inventory Controls as Large Retailers



The Grove, a grand luxury country house hotel and golf course in the south of England, found that its spreadsheet software was not giving it the necessary information to properly measure and analyze its inventory.

Retail shops like The Grove’s, whether at country clubs or hotels, often run at less than capacity, even when business at the facility is booming. Yet, guests and patrons are a captive audience.

The Grove recently installed Adaco Services’ Emporium in its golf shop, where the software is managing the inventory of about 300 items. Since it is also comparing sales of each item to last year’s sales, Emporium is actually managing more than 600 items in the golf shop.

“Our point of sale software did not have an inventory control module and, therefore, we were using a creative spreadsheet to manage our stock receivables and inventory counts,” said Spencer Schaub, Director of Golf at The Grove. “The spreadsheet did not allow us to understand our current inventory at any given point in time. It was time consuming, and we were not able to get any reporting functionality.

“Emporium has allowed us to see how much stock we have on hand at any one time, thus allowing us to identify and manage our inventory levels without having surplus or a deficit in stock,” he said,  “The software has also allowed us to manage our COS for each category of merchandise rather then a COS total for retail.

The software will be fully integrated with The Grove’s POS system by June, Schaub said.

Emporium will also automatically reduce the time for inputting sales data and managing inventory, which will improve the shop’s operational efficiency, he said.

According to Adaco Services’ CEO, Mark Pinsley, Emporium does markdowns and sales, tells you when and what to reorder, and has a “just-in-time” inventory control feature, which enables retail shops to reduce inventory and investment by reducing the number of overstocked or slow-moving items.

“The guest or customer has a markedly improved experience at the store, which drives up sales and improves the bottom line,” he said.

Host to the 2006 American Express World Golf Championships, The Grove will now have more satisfied customers coming through its golf shop. The hotel, which also has an award-winning spa and three restaurants, is part of the largest family-owned and run luxury hotel group in England.

“Small and medium-sized retail business now have the same controls as The Gap,” Pinsley said. “We’re very focused on purchasing and inventory vs. a POS system, which is focused on the goods being sold.”

Emporium is a complete retail procurement, inventory management and retail analysis product. Enhancing the performance of retail environments, the software can be used with a variety of point-of-sale systems and provides tools to handle seasonal fluctuations at a single pro shop or at hundreds of gift shops throughout a hotel chain.

Retail shops can take full advantage of their retail traffic by ensuring that their racks and shelves are fully stocked with the hottest selling items, in the right categories, the right quantities, the right colors, the right sizes and the right prices.

With total scalability, Emporium can be customer-tailored to meet the needs of almost any retail operation. A purchasing manager can instantly analyze and control the total cost of doing business with suppliers. Inventory re-order reports, electronic purchasing orders (via the Adaco Assistant laser scanner), customized purchase orders, and detailed price history by category, product and vendor can be generated. Requisitioning is faster and paperless.

Emporium also has receiving and reporting features. Freight and local taxes can be allocated automatically. Its reporting function converts historical usage patterns and current trends into projected demand.

Adaco provides intensive training either via the Web or as an onsite option.

Since 1985, Adaco Services, LLC has managed all aspects of the hospitality industry’s procurement and operations needs and is now being used at hotels in more than 500 properties in 54 countries. Adaco has continually enhanced its software, with global input, to accommodate the industry’s changes and growth at both single and multi-property hotels.