Point Of Sale: Epson's Customized Interfaces And Printers Keep Crate & Barrel's POS System Rolling

A year before Crate & Barrel’s planned rollout of a new POS system, the unexpected happened: the old Axiohm printers running on their legacy NCR systems began having serious problems. Because Crate & Barrel was developing its new POS system internally, it still needed a year to streamline and pilot its new venture. Did it make sense to replace hundreds of printers before installing the new system? What solutions were available? They needed to make sure that the new printers would work with both their legacy and new POS systems.

Crate & Barrel found a way to stop its legacy POS system from grinding to a halt. Rather than rushing their new POS system, the chain developed an interim strategy with software solutions provider Direct Source and Epson to put a solution in place. Epson customized an interface to allow Crate & Barrel to use 700 Epson TM-H6000II printers with their legacy NCR systems in 91 stores throughout the U.S.

"We looked at many vendors, and Epson was the only company able to customize an interface for the legacy NCR system," said Ed Rennemann, CIO and vice president of MIS at Crate & Barrel. "We rolled out Epson printers, which sped up our check-out and gave us time to complete development and pilot test our new POS system."