Vend helps Oklahoma make great business decisions
Watch OKLAHOMA'S story
Home & Gifts
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Omnichannel
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UK
United Kingdom
Oklahoma has been open for over two decades, and sells a hand-picked selection of niche, quirky and retro products from around the world.
One brick and mortar location and an ecommerce site.
okla.co.ukAt a Glance
Over 2,000 SKUs managed in Vend.
With Vend, Oklahoma has been able to:
The Challenge
As a small business with big aspirations, Oklahoma needed a new point of sale and inventory management system that would help them make informed decisions and empower them to become the business they wanted to be.
Husband and wife duo Yaw and Nicola were inspired by their travels and wanted to create a store that would bring all of the colour and vibrancy of places like Morocco and Mexico to Manchester.
Oklahoma has been described as an Aladdin’s Cave of homeware and gifts from around the world. With thousands of products on offer at any one time, their old way of keeping track of stock wasn’t up to scratch. “We used a mixture of our old till system, pen and paper, and things sellotaped to a wall,” says Yaw. “It was really all over the place.”
The team also found that their old point of sale system wasn’t giving them the information they needed. “The way I work is very much data-led,” explains Yaw. “With the old system we had, the information we had access to was incredibly poor. I wasn’t able to make any decisions with confidence.”
“I was looking for an easier way to input data, and more than that, an easier way for me to extract data to get a sense of the health of my business.”
Yaw Djang, co-founder
The Solution
Oklahoma were one of the earliest businesses to switch to Vend and take full advantage of its partners and features.
After searching for a point of sale system that would keep track of their thousands of SKUs and provide them with usable data, Oklahoma discovered that Vend ticked all the boxes.
One of the other things that initially brought Oklahoma to Vend was the way it seamlessly integrates with other world-leading business apps. “I saw there was a connection between Xero and Vend,” says Yaw. “I just thought, now that makes sense. To be able to have real-time accounting with real-time inventory and product processing.”
Setting up Vend was a simple process, and The Oklahoma team have now taken advantage of Vend’s flexibility by running three tills on iPad and using another set of iPads for buying, inventory and data analysis.
“It all worked really easily. It only took a couple of nights playing around with buttons and adding products to be up and running.”
Yaw Djang, co-founder
Oklahoma brings their solution together with the best in retail
The Results
From inventory management and purchasing, to customer relations and business strategy, Vend has helped Oklahoma grow into one of Manchester’s biggest independent businesses.
With Vend’s powerful inventory system, Oklahoma now manage over 2,000 SKUs from more than 300 suppliers. The team have also been able to use Vend’s extensive reporting data to make new purchasing decisions. “For us, it’s really important to help us decide whether something worked, didn’t work, or is worth another shot,” explains Yaw. “Before Vend, Nicola would call the shop every ten or fifteen minutes to find out stock levels and sales figures for products, so we’re saving tonnes of time.”
Oklahoma has been able to keep customers coming back by capturing details quickly and easily at the point of sale. “We can record email addresses, customer names and any other details at the checkout, and customers are happy to subscribe for our web newsletter or sign up to our loyalty program,” says Yaw.
As an early adopter of Vend, Oklahoma have been with Vend for over six years and haven’t thought about changing their system. “One of the things that’s really pleasing is that Vend is always working on the platform,” says Yaw. “As long as Vend keeps investing in making life better for retailers, we’ll keep investing in them.”
“Vend opens up lots of possibilities that weren’t there before. We’re able to see how customers are actually behaving and how every product is performing.”
Yaw Djang, co-founder
