Retail IT for small chains and large retailers
Tills that keep taking payments, branches that stay online and support that knows a Thursday afternoon is no time for an outage. We manage the complete IT chain, from the shop floor to head office.
In retail, the customer notices every outage straight away
A customer waiting five minutes at a till does not see an IT problem. They see a shop that is not running properly.
Retail IT touches the customer experience directly: if the card terminal freezes, the stock figure is wrong or a branch loses its connection, you see it in your revenue the same day.
At the same time, the IT environment of a chain is harder to run than that of a single office. You have dozens of locations with their own hardware, changing staff without an IT background, payment systems with their own certification requirements and a webshop that draws on that same stock. Those layers are often spread across different suppliers, which turns an outage into a search for whoever will pick it up.
We take on that chain as a whole. Till systems, the branch network, camera security, the link between shop and webshop, and the service desk your shop staff call, under one agreement and with service levels that are the same at every location. Retail is our core sector, so the rhythm of the shop floor is familiar to us.
Retail IT for smaller chains
With a handful of stores, IT is the subject nobody was hired for. The till supplier handles the till, the provider handles the line, the security firm handles the cameras, and when the card terminal fails on a Saturday afternoon nobody knows who to call. Meanwhile there is a queue.
We become that one number. We know your tills, your connection and your opening hours, and we are reachable during the hours you are open, Saturdays included. What is needed then is often already standing by: a spare card terminal or a second line saves more than it costs.
- One number for till, network and camera We work out which supplier it sits with instead of you doing that while a queue forms.
- Reachable during trading hours Saturdays too, because that is the day downtime costs the most.
- Spares on the shelf A second card terminal or a backup line per branch, so a fault does not become a closed store.
- A new store as a package Network, tills and wifi delivered in one go, with the same setup as the rest.
Retail IT for large retailers
With dozens or hundreds of branches the question shifts from fixing faults to having the same thing everywhere. A branch that deviates is a branch every change has to be made separately for, and a rollout that runs differently in five places costs more in rework than in execution.
So our retail IT services deliver the same setup per branch, rolled out in waves and with the same monitoring at every location. Scanners, tills and label printers arrive prepared; what that involves sits under warehouse IT and POS hardware.
- Every branch the same setup One design that applies everywhere, so a change is made once and not a hundred times.
- Rollout outside trading hours At night or on the quietest day, per region, so no store has to close.
- Monitoring per branch Loss of a line, a till or a printer arrives with us before the store calls.
- Peak season accounted for No changes and extra cover around the holidays, because that is exactly when downtime costs most.
Six components, available separately or as a complete retail environment
You can take individual components. Most chains choose the combination, because the gain lies in removing the handover moments between suppliers.
Retail service desk
Your shop staff call or chat directly with our support team, with no intermediate layer and no jargon. Known problems we solve at first contact. If that is not possible remotely, an engineer comes to the shop. Response times are agreed per branch in advance.
Management of POS systems
Roll-out, configuration and 24/7 monitoring of tills, card terminals and self-scan checkouts. We handle the installation, the link with your payment system and the software integrations, and keep it all running afterwards. With us, a till that is down takes priority over the rest of the queue.
Branch network
SD-WAN or broadband VPN per site, with redundant uplinks at the locations that cannot tolerate downtime. Network infrastructure and cabling are included, so a new branch is simply online on its opening day.
Cameras and shop security
IP cameras, video management, motion detection and cloud storage, set up in line with the GDPR.
Shop and webshop connected
Webshop, till, warehouse and customer system tied together (including Lightspeed, Shopify and Magento) so that stock and customer data stay in sync.
Scaling around peak days
Temporary extra first-line capacity around Black Friday, Sinterklaas and the Christmas weeks, agreed in advance in your annual contract.
What you can expect from our team
Retail IT calls for engineers who know the shop floor and for agreements that are the same in every branch.
- Broad POS knowledgeTill software, payment solutions from CCV, PAYplaza and Adyen, and hardware from Epson, HP and Elo. No learning period at your expense.
- Our own engineers in the Netherlands and BelgiumOn-site work we do ourselves, without subcontracting and without the mark-up that comes with it.
- Standardised service levelsEvery branch gets the same processes and the same response times, even if you have sites in several countries.
- Integrations as routineConnections between webshop, till and warehouse management are daily work for our team, not a one-off project.
- Kiwa NEN 4400-1 certifiedStaffing and administration demonstrably in order, including when we place people at your site.
- Attention to privacy and regulationWe set up camera footage and customer data in line with the GDPR, and we advise on the requirements your payment chain places on you.
How we roll out across your branches
Retail IT is planned differently from office IT. These four principles are standard in the way we work with chains.
Rolling out in phases
Bringing new software or hardware to all your branches is not a single weekend’s work. We work in phases: plan, document, guide staff and evaluate after each phase before the next one starts.
Respecting opening hours
We carry out changes outside shop hours and schedule maintenance windows at night. Around peak days a change freeze applies: nothing is altered in a working environment.
Solving remotely first
The person reporting the issue is usually a shop assistant with no IT knowledge. So we solve remotely first. If that is not possible and sales are at a standstill, we send an engineer to the branch within the response time set out in your contract.
Moving with the season
We scale up for the busy months and back down afterwards. You do not pay all year for capacity you only need in high season.
At the counter, only one thing counts: being able to carry on
The person who uses your IT every day has a customer standing in front of them. We set up support around that moment, not around the diagram at head office.
- Reporting without IT jargonYour colleague describes what they see: the receipt will not print, the drawer stays shut. We translate that into the right till, terminal or integration.
- One fixed route per branchOne number and one chat for all shops, so nobody has to work out which supplier they need now.
- Working with changing staffNew and temporary colleagues can come to us straight away; we document the set-up and procedures per location, so knowledge does not sit with one person.
Where retail IT borders on other work
A retail environment extends into your head office, your connectivity and your security. These services connect to it directly.
Questions we get about this
The ones that come up most, answered briefly.
What do our branches notice when something breaks?
As little as possible, because that is the point. At the till only one thing counts: being able to carry on. So the setup always includes a fallback for the till and the payment connection, so a fault does not immediately mean nobody can pay.
Can we take parts separately?
Yes. Six parts, available separately or as a complete retail environment: POS systems, the branch network, camera security, office workplaces, the service desk and the management. Many chains start with the network and the tills and expand later.
Do you take our busy periods into account?
Yes, and we record it. Maintenance is planned outside your peak, and around the busiest days of the year we run at heightened alertness. A service desk that does not know the rhythm of your shops schedules an update on a Saturday morning.
How does a rollout across sites work?
Branch by branch, in a set order, with a pilot in one shop before the rest follow. That way the surprises surface at one location instead of thirty at once. We fit the planning around your opening hours.
Do you also do the systems management, or only the tills and the network?
Both. Systems management for retail is the same work here as anywhere else (servers, workplaces, updates, backup and access) with one difference that decides everything: it has to happen in the hours when the shops are shut. Anyone who sets up retail IT management as though it were an office plans maintenance for Saturday morning, and notices that once.
What is the difference between a POS system and retail IT support?
The POS system is the till itself: the till software comes from your POS vendor and the payment terminal from your payment provider, and both stay theirs. Retail IT support is everything that system leans on: the branch network, the hardware around it, the wifi, the monitoring and the number you call when something falters. We do not decide what the till does; we make sure it can keep doing it.
What does retail IT support cost?
Per user per month, the same form as the service desk. What drives the figure is the number of branches and what sits under management per branch: tills, network, cameras and the hours you need cover for. You get a fixed figure up front, and anything outside the scope is agreed before it happens.
Our own certifications
ITproposal is certified for ISO 9001 (quality), ISO/IEC 27001 (information security), ISO 14001 (environment) and Kiwa NEN 4400-1 (labour hire and secondment). That says something about how we work and how we have our own processes assessed; it is not a certification you inherit from us.
Start with a branch scan
In a thirty-minute conversation we go through your branch structure, your current set-up and the bottlenecks that trouble you most. No sales talk, but a concrete judgement on what is needed.
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