Norfa, a major retail chain in Lithuania, is using the latest printing technology from Citizen Systems Europe to streamline one of its most successful marketing strategies. The company is using a number of Citizen’s high performance CLP-521 printers to provide the simple, fast and cost effective printing of high quality markdown labels for use in its regular discount sale activities across its branches.
Established in 1997, JSC Norfos mažmena is one of the largest and currently the most rapidly developing retail chain in Lithuania, running 120 different type and size stores. The Norfa stores are categorised into five store types, including S, L, XL, XXL and Hyper, with the type of store being determined by the size of the facility area and the range of the goods, for example, S stores are the smallest, while the Hyper store is a supermarket.
The Norfa stores are renowned for their comfortable and relaxed environment for customers, with special attention being made to functionality as well as aesthetically pleasing interior design. The company is oriented towards the practical buyer with an average to high income. The abundance of goods, outstanding service, efficient discount system and optimal pricing mean that stores are constantly attracting new, as well as retaining their longstanding, loyal customers.
One of the fundamental tasks in the company’s trade is the sale of its products before they reach their expiry dates and have to be wasted, which could potentially cost the company considerable amounts of money every day. In a drive to reduce this wastage significantly, each Norfa store promotes sales towards the end of the period of validity by reducing the price of the goods. However, when making such discounts, it is vital to avoid reducing the price of productions that are not coming to the end of their expiry date.
As a result, JSC RASO, a leading Lithuanian provider of retail hardware and software, which has worked with the Norfa retail chain for more than 10 years, helped the company to identify a solution that would enable them carry out price reduction tasks quickly and simply. After considerable evaluation of the available technologies, Norfa opted to use Citizen’s machines across 120 of its stores. Various types of handheld terminals were also selected for use in the price changing activities.
The adoption of these new technologies enables employees to scan the goods that are to be discounted to confirm the validity period of the produce. Each employee then verifies whether this item is to be reduced and enters the new price into the system. The handheld devices then communicate with the Citizen printers, which print a barcode label quickly and in high definition, at up to six inches per second, displaying the new price, as well as the name of the person who performed the price change. This new system also ensures effective goods sale control for the management as it immediately provides information about the sale of discounted goods.
Just as importantly, the construction of the Citizen printers allows staff to print dispatch labels extremely quickly, thanks to the printer’s simple to set up and use design. The Hi-Lift™ mechanism, which opens to one side to provide users with unobstructed access to the printer’s internal mechanisms, also reduces the time needed to load media to just a few seconds, minimising downtime to an absolute minimum for maximum productivity.
Dimitrij Kulakov, Head of the IT department at JSC Norfos mažmena, explained, “With products needing to be reduced in our stores every day, it is vital that everything runs as smoothly as possible. We chose the Citizen printers for the job as, on evaluation of the available technologies, they stood out as the most effective solution. For example, they have really helped us to streamline the way we print and apply labels to produce and enable us to print different sized labels according to the type of product that is being marked down. Just as importantly, the printers are exceptionally easy to use and maintain, allowing staff to remain focused on more important tasks. Ultimately, the high quality of the Citizen printers and operational simplicity confirms our choice.”
Citizen System Europe
Jörk Schüßler, European Marketing Manager
Tel: 020 8893 1900
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