Increasing Average Transaction Price, Employee Retention, and At-Register Donations with Epicor Propello
Goodwill Industries® of Northwest Ohio helps community residents overcome personal barriers to employment. An important part of the business is Goodwill’s retail stores, which collect and resell donated clothing, furniture, and household items.
Not only do the retail stores provide employee opportunities, but the revenue generated helps power the company’s mission—with funds directly supporting new job training and placement programs. This means, the more efficiently the retail stores are operating and the more revenue coming in the door, the broader the reach to the community at large.
Discover how Tim Kralovic, Vice President, Donated Goods for Goodwill Industries of NW Ohio, took the stores from manual to modern with Epicor Propello, decreasing employee turnover by 25%, expanding customer loyalty programs, and increasing average ticket transaction size by 15%.
Across retail locations, Goodwill Industries of NW Ohio was using old-school Casio registers and standalone credit card readers to ring up customer transactions. When the registers were starting to fail, a nationwide shortage created a tipping point for the organization to modernize point-of-sale (POS) processes and retail management.
“We wanted an intuitive system to make sales transactions as simple as possible for employees and customers, reducing manual entry and, therefore, reducing human error,” shares Kralovic.
The organization looked many POS systems. The company had several key requirements: ease of use, barcode scanning, SKU customization, a loyalty program, and a cloud environment—wanting to support offline transactions should internet services go down.
“Some retail management solutions tried to force functionality on us, increasing the cost for features we weren’t ready to use,” continues Kralovic. “We spoke to other Goodwill locations who are big fans of Propello and they praised the ability to start simple and scale—all within the same cost-friendly price point.”
Once Goodwill Industries of NW Ohio selected Propello, Epicor Professional Services was off and running with the integration. When Kralovic reflects back, he marvels at the speed and ease of the process, with all locations integrated within 90 days.
”I give Epicor Professional Services a ton of praise. I was in the middle of remodeling one of our store locations and felt no added pressure because I knew the team had it under control,” he explains. “Epicor went above and beyond to ensure deployment success, with a willingness to help every step of the way.”
One Goodwill store was unable to take part in Propello training as the store was being remodeled and computers weren’t yet live at the time of training. Those employees received a quick overview of the platform on the morning the store opened to the public, handling the increased sales volume—more than five times the normal transactions—like pros.
“The ease of onboarding is a huge advantage as we had zero hiccups during opening day at our remodeled location,” Kralovic explains. “Within the first 30 minutes, cashiers were saying how easy it was to process transactions and get customers on their way.”
The company also benefitted from efficiencies tied to register closing activities at the end of day, eliminating the manual counting of tills and saving two hours of payroll activities per day across each of the 15 locations.
With Propello, Goodwill Industries introduced a new points-based loyalty program, generating a customer reward when a set spending threshold is reached. Cashiers can see customer point balances and rewards within the system, alerting customers of their status, with the data also included on receipts.
And the new program has paid off. By moving away from one-off promotions and using a single loyalty program, discounts now make up 3.5% of sales (versus 5%)—a significant shift that has positively impacted revenue.
Before Propello, cashiers would ask customers about a desire to round up the sale to the nearest dollar amount, requiring staff to calculate the amount. Now, customers receive an automated prompt at checkout, making it easy for individuals to take part. This ease of participation has resulted in a 33% increase in roundups since Propello was deployed, with funds supporting Goodwill’s mission activities.
The retail stores are supported by many part-time employees, many of whom require flexible shifts due to limited availability. Being able to quickly onboard new users with Propello has made an impact, combined with how easy the solution is to use.
80 percent of our employees are ‘very satisfied’ or ‘satisfied’ with having the proper tools to be successful in their position. We’ve reduced turnover by 25% and Propello is certainly a contributing factor.
With Propello, Goodwill Industries has improved visibility into retail operations, utilizing daily category sales reports to know what’s selling and what isn’t. This insight into inventory is vital as each store carries different items, allowing managers to accurately replenish items where needed. And with Propello dashboards accessed by head cashiers and management, employees feel more invested in the organization’s success.
“Employees have insight into what’s happening at other stores and managers can give praise where praise is due. For example, the dashboard shows our average price per transaction has gone up—from $15 to $17.10—and employees can see the impact that has on revenue,” Kralovic adds.
Goodwill Industries and Epicor work closely together to explore additional features to use and new ways to track and use data. Kralovic talks about the value of the partnership and the platform flexibility.
With Propello, we have an open canvas to create the sales environment that best supports our business, with room to scale and layer in additional functionality as we diversify.
For other Goodwill stores considering a move to Propello, Kralovic believes the solution will pay for itself with a combination of quantifiable results and other benefits that are hard to measure but just as valuable. “Propello has enhanced our operations in so many ways, positively impacting our people, our retention, and our culture, and helping us work better together,” he concludes.
