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Dustin Billow and Thomas Yoder have been sneakerheads for as long as they can remember. In 2021, they decided to turn their passion into a business and founded <\/span>Soleply<\/span>, a consignment store specializing in high-end, limited-edition sneakers and apparel.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nSince then, Soleply has opened four store locations in malls across Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and has cemented itself as a go-to spot where sneakerheads can buy coveted, hard-to-find sneakers.<\/span><\/p>\nAs Soleply\u2019s customer base grew, bottlenecks became all too common at the stores\u2019 checkout counters. To combat this frustrating experience, Dustin and Thomas equipped staff with POS Go, Shopify\u2019s fully-integrated mobile point of sale device.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nSince adopting <\/span>Shopify POS Go<\/b>, Soleply has been able to:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\nServe customers from anywhere in the store<\/span><\/li>\nCross sell complimentary products with ease\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\nIncrease its stores\u2019 average order value<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\nChallenge: Bottlenecks at the front register\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n While checkout counter lines are a sign of success, they make for a poor experience for customers and staff. With just a single stationary checkout counter at each store, Soleply became intimately familiar with this challenge as business boomed. At any given moment, there could be a mix of people lining up to consign, buy, or trade sneakers, resulting in long wait times and a slow checkout process.<\/span><\/p>\nFor staff, bottlenecks became a source of stress and reduced efficiency. For customers, long lines and congested checkout counters deterred purchases, trades, and consignments.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cYou have people piling up waiting, waiting to get checked out,\u201d Dustin says. \u201cNot only do you have a line of people in front of the counter, but behind the counter you also have all the products stacked up that they\u2019re waiting to buy. It can feel like \u2019Oh my God, everyone\u2019s on top of me and they\u2019re all waiting.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\nWe needed POS hardware that let us serve customers, look up product availability, and accept payments without having to be at the checkout counter.<\/p>\nDustin Billow, Co-Owner, Soleply<\/cite><\/footer>\n<\/blockquote>\nSolution: Serving customers anywhere in the store with POS Go<\/b><\/h2>\n To ensure customers were served efficiently and checkout was quick, Soleply chose to upgrade its point-of-sale hardware to POS Go, Shopify\u2019s new handheld POS terminal.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cBruce Lee said, \u2018Be like water,\u2019\u201d Dustin says. \u201cWith POS Go, we can do that. We\u2019re able to serve customers throughout the entire store, instead of just the checkout area. It really allows us to open up the store and change the retail experience. Someone can check customers out toward the front of the store, and while they\u2019re checking out that person, they can also make sure that they\u2019re greeting the new customer who\u2019s walking in the door. With POS Go, you can do more with less staff and be more efficient overall.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nInstead of having to download a POS app on their personal smartphones to enable mobile checkout, Soleply\u2019s employees have everything they need to serve customers in one professional handheld device. Equipped with POS Go as their work tool, sales associates can get more done and are sending a message to customers that they\u2019re ready to help.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cAllowing all of the associates to have a POS Go, and not have to have logins on their personal phone, enables our staff to come to work, put their device away, and be solely focused on the customer,\u201d Dustin says. \u201cWhen you have POS Go, you don\u2019t need to be looking at stuff on your phone.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nWith all the information they need at their fingertips, staff can assist customers without needing to run back to the checkout counter to look up stock or scan an item. And with an all-day battery, employees don\u2019t have to worry about POS Go running out of juice. \u201cThe all-day battery life is extremely important, because we\u2019re open from 10 am to 9 pm every single day,\u201d Dustin says.<\/span><\/p>\nPOS Go\u2019s long-lasting battery has also made it easier for Soleply\u2019s staff to connect with customers. \u201cWe tell our team to build personal relationships with customers: make sure you know their name, what size they wear, what they like\u2014get to know that person,\u201d Dustin says. \u201cPOS Go allows them to maintain that relationship on a one-on-one level, without having to pass them to another staff and without having to leave a certain area so that they can make sure that they greet the next person as they\u2019re helping another customer.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\nPOS Go allows us to be with customers and serve them without having to go back to the checkout counter. Its flexibility really helped improve our store flow.<\/p>\nDustin Billow, Co-Owner, Soleply<\/cite><\/footer>\n<\/blockquote>\nResults: A guided shopping experience and higher order values\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n Thomas says he\u2019s already seen a return on Soleply\u2019s investment into POS Go. \u201cWe\u2019ve definitely far exceeded the cost of POS Go in terms of its value that we\u2019ve gotten back,\u201d he says.<\/span><\/p>\nThe portability of POS Go has allowed Soleply\u2019s staff to walk with shoppers as they browse. Because staff are no longer tethered to the checkout counter, and have product information at their fingertips, upselling premium sneakers and cross-selling complementary products has become easier.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cStaff can navigate customers into the store and cross sell products that aren\u2019t just in the checkout register area. POS Go allows the sale location to be more mobile,\u201d Dustin says. As a result, Soleply\u2019s customers are spending more. \u201cJust recently, our average cart value went up and our units per transaction as well. There\u2019s definitely been an uptick in the last couple months compared to before we had POS Go.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nWith POS Go, staff can check inventory availability across each of Soleply\u2019s four stores. If they don\u2019t have inventory on hand but it\u2019s available at another location, they can close the sale on the spot and ship the item to the customer\u2019s home.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cWe use <\/span>ship-to-home fulfillment<\/span> all the time. Our locations are laid out by size. Every wall has a size section and people will shop in their size section. If customers see something else they like in a different size section, they always ask if we have it in their size, and it\u2019s nice to be able to say, \u2018Oh yeah, we have that.\u2019 We can ship that right to them,\u201d Thomas says.<\/span><\/p>\nAnd whether a customer walks out of a Soleply store with sneakers in hand or gets them shipped home, staff can rest easy knowing they\u2019ll get credit for the sale. \u201cThey\u2019re all on commission, so the more sales our staff can make, the better for them and for everybody involved. Shopify POS attributes their name and store location to the sale, so they get credit for every sale they make,\u201d Dustin says.<\/span><\/p>\n\nPOS Go is a great match for our business model. We can serve customers wherever they are, sell our stock wherever it is, and accept any payment method they prefer. It\u2019s added so much polish to our customer experience.<\/p>\nDustin Billow, Co-Owner, Soleply<\/cite><\/footer>\n<\/blockquote>\nLooking ahead: Building a sneaker empire<\/b><\/h2>\n With POS Go in staff\u2019s hands, Soleply can grow in new ways. One avenue for growth is finally being able to sell at trade shows, rather than attending just to source new inventory.<\/span><\/p>\nDustin explains that with POS Go, \u201cyou don\u2019t have to bring a huge POS system\u2014you don\u2019t even have to bring a whole iPad to a trade show. There\u2019s more table space for me to put products out and now I can check out anybody. If I didn\u2019t even want to have a table, I could put everything in a backpack and carry around the one or two items I\u2019m selling, and check you out right on my POS Go. It frees you up to do so many things.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nGrowth doesn\u2019t end there for Soleply. Backed by improved efficiency and useful management features like <\/span>staff roles and permissions<\/span>, Soleply plans to expand its retail empire and open six more stores by the end of 2023.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cWe have four stores currently, and we have three more opening in the next three months,\u201d Dustin says. \u201cThen there\u2019s one we\u2019re about to sign for. So by the end of the year, we\u2019ll have eight stores.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n
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