Claire's
Claire’s Stores, Inc. is arguably the largest retailer of fashion accessory products in the
world. In the company’s own terms – its mission “... to be the most profitable retailer
selling costume jewellery and fashion accessories in an environment that is organized,
focused and fun, with superior customer service.” Its a set of objectives the business
is clearly achieving – with a highly impressive store growth rate – now over 2,900
worldwide with revenues exceeding $1.1 billion – a very strong, ten years growth from
995 outlets in 1992.

For Claire’s it is a fast moving, fashion orientated retail environment – where
merchandising and marketing practices reinforce the company’s position as the
accessory headquarters for teen and tween customers. Newness in merchandise is key
with customers attained through constant product testing and fast placement of
successful test items in all departments. In this environment state of the art –
responsive and Retail Ready EPoS solutions are a central ingredient to the swift
transaction processing requirements and key to delivering the management information
the business heavily relies on.

In 2003 leading Retail Technology Solutions Group, DigiPoS Systems Swiss office, was
invited to assess the evolving EPoS technology requirements of Claire’s German speaking
regions incorporating Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. With a clear identification of the
need, Claire’s agreed to pilot 2 DigiPoS PowerPoS Systems extensively in their busiest
shop with the most demanding personnel on Bahnhof Strasse, Zurich’s main shopping
street before making a firm commitment on installation of additional systems. It was a
test that DigiPoS was able to pass completely, leading to a 97 store roll-out across the
geography with a total of 105 systems. Carlos Lozano, IT Director at Claire’s Switzerland
adds the detail to the decision to select DigiPoS: “Its true to say that there were three main
factors that influenced our decision to choose DigiPoS. Firstly, it was outright
superior product performance – from our trials, DigiPoS came out well ahead in terms
of functionality and reliability. Secondly, we found that DigiPoS personnel clearly
understood our business and they were able to demonstrate support at every stage of
our working with them – and finally their ability to professionally support the
installations throughout the region was important to us.”

The highly successful Claire’s Stores concept translates internationally as a store that targets
young teens with accessory styles widely promoted by the media. Claire’s first arrived in
the United Kingdom in 1996 and European expansion continued with Austria, Switzerland,
Germany, France and Ireland with an acquisition strategy for Europe to purchase retail chains
with existing management infrastructure, local buying expertise and knowledge of local
customs. The international capability of the DigiPoS Systems group was reaffirmed as
influential in Claire’s decision to select the company as EPoS solutions provider.
On behalf of DigiPoS Switzerland Markus Dietrich identified the ongoing nature of the
relationship: “Claire’s Stores, Inc. is a very well run retail business and we have been
privileged to be able to assist the company with their IT development platform and
provide the solutions they need. We are also pleased to note that there is now a
programme for the installation and support of a further 400 systems across France
over the coming three years – which will also see the incorporation of the unique
DigiPoS remote diagnostics application that enables remote interrogation and testing
of EPoS systems.”

For their full EPoS requirements Claire’s selected the DigiPoS PowerPoS system with
Touchscreen technology and customer display, a printer, and DigiPoS cash drawer – a
system combination that replaced the outgoing IBM 4695 systems.