Historic Tours of America mobilizes in-store customer experience
An operator of themed retail stores and festival marketplaces is providing mobile devices to associates.
Historic Tours of America is upgrading its in-store technology platform to Oracle Retail Xstore Point-of-Service (POS). Leveraging this new solution, the retailer enables associates the freedom to move throughout the store and directly interact with customers looking to buy souvenirs and gifts, using mobile devices.
As a result, Historic Tours of America is streamlining and automating store operations, while increasing personalization, collecting store-level data to help inform broader business decisions, and improving the customers shopping experience.
In addition, the retailer is using the Oracle Retail EFTLink framework for payment processing using an Oracle Payment Interface (OPI)-certified core. This implementation allows Historic Tours of America to leverage new card payment technology.
“We were already using Oracle Retail Xstore Point-of-Service and were extremely satisfied with the features and functions supporting our day-to-day business operations,” said Michael Cates, Retail IT Manager, Historic Tours of America. “After working with the highly skilled and knowledgeable Oracle Xstore team, we chose to initiate the upgrade project. Throughout this entire process, the Oracle team remained very consultative. Oracle Retail Consulting advised our team on best practices to ensure that the implementation aligned with our overall business objectives and goals.”
“Recent consumer research shows that many people are looking to invest more in travel and experiences in the coming months and no doubt pick up mementos to make the most of these special memories,” said Mike Webster, senior VP and GM, Oracle Retail. “As the retail and hospitality industries rise to meet this demand, removing friction from the customer journey becomes a top priority. By enabling its staff with the right tools and insights, Historic Tours can free up time to engage with customers versus just the transaction to create moments that last a lifetime.”
Historic Tours of America, Inc. is an entertainment company which provides historically-oriented vacation experiences through the operation of trolleys, street trains, high speed ferry, themed retail stores, festival marketplaces and other historic tourist attractions in Key West, Fla; Boston; San Diego; Savannah, Ga.; Washington, D.C., and St. Augustine, Fla.
Bally migrates to mobile Oracle POS
Swiss luxury brand Bally is also replacing its POS system with the Oracle Retail Xstore platform across 18 countries. By leveraging mobile Oracle technology, Bally intends its associates to have easy access to the data which will help them understand customer preferences better.
In addition, Bally seeks to enable store associates to move freely and be able to help customers find the merchandise they are seeking—in-store or online—and check out with ease.
After reviewing multiple options in the market, Bally chose to replace its POS systems with the Oracle Retail Xstore Point-of-Service and Oracle Retail Xstore Office solutions. Critical in this decision was the technology’s unique reference library, which offers built-in processes and retail-specific best practices that will provide ongoing support to Bally’s small IT team.