User Story - Retailware Online

With installations at more than 400 diving retailers from Canada to Australia, to Europe, the Caribbean, and beyond, RetailWare Online's ScubaWare sets an unbeatable standard for complete retail functionality in the recreational diving industry.

This Point-Of-Sale (POS) and back-office powerhouse has grown to market dominance because of its ability to offer precisely what the retailer needs and it demands strong appeal within its niche market.

For dive retailers of any size, this is a perfect investment because it provides the proper management tools. ScubaWare not only provides users with a core POS system but it also provides clients with a customer information management, merge-letter marketing, inventory management, and more. For retailers who are managing through paper-oriented books or have tried generic DBMS applications, the automation and industry-specific functionality we offer is almost irresistible."

When the company first developed the application in 1989, it started as a complete POS system for DOS PCs. The company (then Divers Software) chose Revelation Software's Advanced Revelation development suite to create the application. Advanced Revelation is Revelation Software's comprehensive environment for creating efficient, powerful character-based applications using a native linear-hash DBMS that is ideal for managing text-intensive applications.

Advanced Revelation (ARev) offered features not found in other environments at the time, such as the multi-valued fields. These enabled to company to do things in AREV that you can't do in other application development tools and, as a result, users aren't 'boxed' into a data-management dead-end. In other DBMSs, there are greater limitations to what you can do.

While the POS application was written in Advanced Revelation, RetailWare Online has created an integrated back-office application that uses Revelation's OpenInsight development environment as well.

To some observers, it might seem ironic that the graphical Windows portions of ScubaWare are tucked away in the back office, not out front for customers to see. Since RetailWare's customers use a broad range of old and new hardware on the sales floor, the company are going to keep their POS terminal portion of the application in DOS for the foreseeable future. It keeps the overhead layering way down and clients get the fastest possible performance. It then makes much more sense to exploit the benefits of Windows and graphical environments for key portions of the back-office modules. Doing so, enables trip-plans to be created with merged letters, bitmaps, and fonts and then send them to prospects. In addition, the creation of everything from laser barcodes for inventory management to management reports such as P&L that are dressed-up and professional looking, can be easily created."

ScubaWare: Complete Dive Retail Management
RetailWare's application is available in "Lite" and "Professional" versions. With ScubaWare Lite, retailers can use Inventory, POS, Customer, and Report modules. The Professional version adds Work Orders, Trips, Rentals, and Classes modules as well as enhanced reports and a complete double-entry accounting system written in AREV. It is interesting to note that RetailWare uses ScubaWare Professional to run their business, using the products that they sell.

When a customer makes a purchase, ScubaWare captures contact information and creates a customer record that lets the retailer track purchase history, outstanding balances, product serial numbers, and warranty reminders. This feature is important because certain scuba equipment, such as regulators, requires periodic servicing.

The customer could then schedule an equipment rental, an instructional class, or dive trip, or even charter a boat. Rentals are critical to dive stores. They enable customers to take classes and try new equipment. ScubaWare also tracks each customer's certification, so clients know what equipment he is qualified to use before renting. In addition, the software tracks what's due back and what's due to go out for rent each day and print out lists of what's overdue. ScubaWare even tracks customer preferences. Not only is that perfect for gift shoppers, it also lets retailers collect lists of similar customers for targeted mailings as well.

In the back-room, ScubaWare helps manage the business. When shipments arrive from manufacturers, users can check-in the items and match it to POs. ScubaWare generates barcode labels for inventory management so that when a customer buys the product, the clerk simply scans the tag.

It is RetailWare Online's goal to be the information-processing hub of the recreational diving industry for retailing, travel, training - the whole picture, and Revelation's products provide RetailWare Online with a tremendous advantage.

Please contact us to discuss how OpenInsight can be used to benefit your business and to help you to maintain your competitive advantage.