George Hammond PLC

Knowing the company
George Hammond PLC entered into petrol retailing in 1971 and is now established as one of the leading retailers in the South East of England. It has seven BP branded retail sites in Kent which offer a wide range of forecourt services including car wash, mini-markets and ATM facilities. The chain's shop turnover is approximately £9 million.

The value of reports
George Hammond PLC first started working with Torex in 1996 when it implemented Torex EPoS and back-office systems across all of its sites. The solution has meant that head office can manage the information generated across all seven sites centrally, allowing George Hammond PLC to create consolidated reports of both wet and dry stock performance. It also gives the company scalability to support additional sites should it decide to grow.

The Profit Clinic
In August 2010, George Hammond PLC took part in the Torex Profit Clinic, a new on-site training programme for convenience and fuel retailers, showing them how to get the most out of their Torex systems. Torex delivered the Profit Clinic service on-site to all seven of George Hammond PLC's managers in one session. It reminded managers how to get insight from their EPoS, by checking data to establish if they were selling products at a loss and/or below realistic margins. It then showed them how to use their systems to optimise their cash margin and store profitability.

The benefits were immediate
Improved insight into profit margins and buying patterns

The Torex Profit Clinic refreshed George Hammond PLC's understanding of how Torex systems can help identify and improve profit margins.

Torex POS and back-office systems are capable of producing hundreds of reports which highlight sales patterns based on data captured, such as 'Best Sellers' by Quantity, Value and most importantly Profit Margin Achieved. Results can be presented in different chart formats to provide a visual representation of sales data.

George Hammond PLC now checks these reports on a regular basis, allowing the business to identify the products where an improved profit could be made. Using these reports, the chain was able to make significant improvements to its confectionary margins, and has already been able to achieve a 2.5% total gross margin improvement in its most successful site.

Speed of implementation
The training scheme was initially implemented in one store. Once positive results were seen, it was rolled out to the remaining sites. As the training was so quick and simple, and took approximately 45 minutes, stores could remain open, saving George Hammond PLC time and money.

The Future
George Hammond PLC is so impressed with the effects of the Profit Clinic training that it plans to continue to use the skills it has learnt to ensure it is using the most appropriate margins, and will train all new staff on the procedures. It estimates that a 2% average total gross margin improvement will be achieved across all sites in the near future. John Ryeland, Director, George Hammond PLC concludes, "The Torex Profit Clinic training has generated huge benefits across the business, both in terms of improving margins and helping us to get the most out of our retail technology. It's reassuring to know that Torex is willing to go beyond providing our technology and act as consultant to help us improve our business."