Webbs flourishes with new Virtual Private Network

Webbs Garden Centre, has successfully implemented a new Virtual Private Network (VPN) at its store in West Hagley, Worcestershire.

The VPN line, provided by Vodat International, will enable the retailer to send all reports from the store back to the Head Office, including sales updates and stock levels. Head office can also send information directly to the store’s EPOS such as promotions, price changes and new items and offers.

The retailer also used the VPN line for its five temporary pop up Christmas stores which sold gifts throughout the festive period across the Midlands area. Updates were fed back to head office allowing the retailer to keep track of sales and stock levels.

Mike Davis, IT Manager at Webbs, said, “We didn’t have a network in place and held sales and stock information locally, and we would send a file across regularly. I decided that we needed to have a secure network in place in order to send this confidential information to the head office and when evaluating the market we came across Vodat International.”
Davis continued, “What’s great about the VPN line is that if a problem occurs on one of our tills, head office is sent an alert and this allows our engineers to log on remotely meaning they can act quickly and reduce the down time in our store. We also use the VPN line to manage the credit card authorisation meaning the payments process at the till is very fast and customers are served quickly making the shopping experience an enjoyable one.”

Future plans include rolling out the VPN line to its one additional store later this year.