How SuitePOS for NetSuite helps Rally House sell faster and save costs across 130+ stores
Rally House, a specialty sports apparel and gift retailer finally found a fast, reliable POS system (integrated to NetSuite) to manage over 1 million SKU codes with ease
The challenge: Outdated POS system became slow and inefficient as the company grew
Founded in 1989 in Kansas, sports gift retailer Rally House now has 130+ stores across the US, plus a booming ecommerce site. Rally House sells jerseys, hats, drinkware and more, branded with hundreds of local, college, and professional sports teams’ logos and colors.
As Rally House grew, its legacy point of sale system, NetSuite POS, struggled to cope with the company’s expanding needs.
With so many hyper-local products, Rally House has well over a million SKU codes to manage. “The sheer volume of our data can be overwhelming for a lot of POS platforms,” says Dane Lickteig, Rally House’s business systems manager.
Processing transactions was slow, due to a sluggish system and non-intuitive interface. This limited how many sales could be rung up within a certain period. It was frustrating for customers who expected a smooth, swift shopping experience.
Behind the scenes, the old POS system took a long time to sync and update data on item availability, sales, and customers. This meant the Rally House team didn’t have accurate, up-to-date oversight of the crucial data they needed to run the business efficiently.
“There was a blind spot in the backend. Data went into an AWS server that we had no visibility or control over. And that was a major problem, because when issues arose, we couldn’t deal with them. We couldn’t see what was happening, what products were available, or customer sales histories.” Dane Lickteig, Business Systems Manager, Rally House
Dane and his team spent a lot of time and effort managing the POS system backend, including many manual workarounds. Running a full sync meant taking the system offline for several hours. It was inefficient and time consuming.
“Looking ahead to the 2021 holiday season, we knew something had to change. We were spending so much effort trying to keep our old POS platform up and work around its limitations. We needed a system suitable for a modern, omnichannel retail company.
With no updates planned for Rally House’s existing POS platform, the company decided to explore other options.
Rally House needed a modern, fast, flexible in-store POS system with a user-friendly interface and strong data management capabilities. The company also wanted to be able to use modern payment systems, which offer lower transaction fees and a smooth customer experience.
The solution: A fast, user-friendly POS app that works seamlessly with NetSuite
Rally House decided to try out SuitePOS, a custom POS system designed to work with NetSuite. SuitePOS streamlines point-of-sale operations by using a single Apple app to serve shoppers throughout the stores, which also improves customer experience.
Unlike many POS systems, SuitePOS doesn’t store data in its own separate database linked to NetSuite via complex, high-maintenance integrations. Instead, SuitePOS sits directly on NetSuite, and acts as an extension of it. This makes SuitePOS simpler, speedier, and more scalable than POS platforms which use separate databases and connectors.
Dane and his colleagues chose a couple of pilot locations to thoroughly test SuitePOS’s capabilities. This included Rally House’s largest store, which has close to 100,000 active SKUs and high sales volumes.
“We get huge spikes in sales when there’s a big sports event on. So we also put SuitePOS in a store with heavy game day traffic in a touristy location, to see how it handled it. And SuitePOS handled it great. It kept up with the extra sales traffic, throughout the football season and the holidays.”
Following the success of the pilot, Rally House installed SuitePOS across all its stores. SuitePOS is configured to work out of the box, so it is quick and easy to set up and start using.
“The rollout of SuitePOS was extremely painless. We went from four terminals to 100 in a month, which shows the platform’s flexibility.”
Throughout the implementation process, Dane and his colleagues were impressed with the quality of SuiteRetail's service.
“The SuiteRetail team is helpful, responsive, and easy to work with. They care about their product a lot, and they've got a great roadmap. It feels like a partnership.
The result: Faster transactions, minimal IT management time, and full data confidence
Since implementing SuitePOS, Rally House’s average transaction time has significantly reduced. Staff can process more sales in less time, which boosts revenue during busy sales periods.
Switching to SuitePOS has generated cost savings for Rally House, due to operational efficiencies and access to modern, cost-effective payment providers.
“Being able to work with Square has effectively paid for the system itself, just by reducing our transaction fees. We also don't need as many IT people to help manage the terminals, and we don't need to spend as much time training associates on using the POS system. All those things contribute to a positive return on investment.”
SuitePOS’s modern, user-friendly interface and quick processing means Rally House now provides a fast, smooth point of sale experience that meets modern customer expectations.
Rally House’s sales associates are delighted with the new system, which enables them to work faster and more efficiently.
“SuitePOS is so intuitive that if you hired someone off the street, they could come in and use the POS terminal. It’s much more user-friendly for our sales associates, and it’s made about 95% of their tasks far easier and more straightforward. That alone makes it a huge upgrade for them.”
SuitePOS has given Rally House data transparency and greater control. Staff can pull accurate, up-to-date information on item availability, sales, and more, whenever they need it.
“From a backend perspective, it’s a significant leap,” Dane says. “It’s far more dynamic, and now we feel confident there are no gaps in the data. And we don't have to have a ton of processes running constantly in the backend.”
“The amount of effort from a management and maintenance standpoint is effectively zero. Once you set SuitePOS up, it runs itself. And the turnaround time to fix any issues is significantly quicker.”
Overall, Rally House has been delighted with the positive impact SuitePOS has had on its business.
“Switching to a platform with a team like the SuiteRetail folks has been a breath of fresh air. They really want SuitePOS to deliver, and if there's an issue they want to fix it ASAP. And the best thing is, they’re constantly improving SuitePOS.”
Could your business benefit from a faster, more user-friendly POS solution for NetSuite?
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