Australian natural skin care brand Jurlique announces today that it has rolled out a new cloud-based point-of-sale system from Vend, across its 16 concept stores in Australia. In a mission aimed at ‘taking out’ the traditional counter and cash register, Jurlique and Vend set-up each new store system within a 12 hour timeframe.

With many Australian retailers facing increasing pressure from large global chains, Jurlique made the decision in mid-2015 to stay ahead of the competition and transform its customer experience. It aimed to remove physical barriers between staff and customers by taking away traditional point-of-sale terminals. Using Vend, staff can now serve customers via a mobile device or iPad anywhere in-store. This process is shown in a video also launched today.

This decision was made as part of Jurlique’s wider business strategy to commit to quality and invest in the in-store experience, focusing on sophisticated technology and personalised care for customers.

“Creating the best possible customer experience is really important to us, and was a key decision in choosing Vend for our point-of-sale and inventory management,” said Ann Donohue, general manager at Jurlique Australia and New Zealand (pictured above). “Being mobile on an iPad means we can now provide consultations, recommend treatments and sell products wherever our customer is most comfortable.”

The new system roll-out began in February this year, with each store being set-up overnight to ensure minimal impact on sales and customers.

“We called it Project Asteroid – we wanted to completely remove our old system with a bang,” said Chris Balogi, director of global IT at Jurlique. “And we did, though you wouldn’t have known it. We switched across each store to the Vend system in just 12 hours. When we closed up for the day our old point-of-sale system was turned off, Vend was set up overnight, and we opened ready for the next day’s trading.

“Over the past three months, all of our stores across Australia have adopted Vend and moved to the cloud with zero downtime for the business.”

“Moving an entire business to the cloud is a big challenge,” said Balogi. “You want to get it right, and be sure you have a system that is flexible enough to let you make changes along the way and build on in the future. Our business is continuing to grow here and overseas, so we didn’t want a system just for now – it has to be able to scale and grow with us.”

Jurlique is now set to roll-out Vend internationally, starting with its UK, Europe and Canada stores. “Vend has enabled us to instantly become very nimble. We can connect via a handheld tablet and start selling. The move to Vend has given us the capability to open new stores much quicker so we’re keen to use this technology globally across all regions,” said Balogi.

“Jurlique is one of Australia’s biggest retail success stories – they are a remarkable company and their growth is a credit to their hard work and willingness to innovate,” said Vaughan Rowsell, Founder of Vend. “We’re so pleased to be working with them in Australia and further afield in a joint mission to create an easy and beautiful in-store experience. Making this kind of change across an entire business takes courage but it has a big pay off. And as customers start demanding this kind of shopping experience more and more, we’re going to see more retailers doing the same.”

Specifically designed for iOS and iPad, Vend’s software helps retailers sell, manage inventory, reward customer loyalty, and analyse business performance across physical and online stores and multiple outlets.

“Cloud technologies are having the biggest impact on business and retail since the internet,” said Rowsell. “They allow sales teams to get out from behind the counter and actually spend time with their customers, they speed up very manual processes, and they can be implemented at a fraction of the cost and time of traditional systems. It’s having a very real and highly competitive impact on the businesses that are making the leap.”