E.W. JAMES PLANS UPGRADE OF POS SYSTEMS CHAINWIDE

ADAM BLAIR

UNION CITY, Tenn. -- A point-of-sale upgrade employing PC technology at E.W. James & Sons here will enable the retailer to more easily link its front end to systems controlling store planograms, direct-store-delivery and electronic shelf labels.

In addition, the new POS units will give the retailer "all the information we need," to run frequent-shopper programs in the future, according to Randy Thetford, chief financial officer at E.W. James. The retailer has no specific time frame for the launch of a frequent-shopper program, however.

The new front-end system, currently being tested in "a lab environment" in one store, is scheduled to be installed in another store this month, according to Thetford. "We plan to have the system installed chainwide by the end of the year," he added. E.W. James operates 24 stores in Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee.

E.W. James is also considering the use of ESLs in some of the stores receiving the POS upgrade, although no shelf tags have yet been installed. "Because the POS system is PC-based, it provides us with more data," he said. "We can easily use it for our planograms, a process that wasn't as convenient," with the retailer's current system.

In addition, the retailer will be able to integrate electronic shelf labels more easily into the stores receiving the POS upgrades, "because the ESLs and the POS are fed off the same price files," which also support the store's DSD operations, according to Thetford. No time frame for the ESL installations has yet been established, however.

The POS systems are from Stores Automated Systems, Bristol, Pa., and TCI, Irvine, Calif., is providing the price file system. The ESLs are from Electronic Retailing Systems International, Norwalk, Conn.