Raiscorp, one of the North West’s leading forecourt and convenience store operators have embarked on an investment in their tobacco retail system with the adoption of Navarra’s smart tobacco gantries linked to their TLM tills to modernise and future proof this key category across all their busy stores.

Operating a successful chain of forecourt and convenience stores is hard work. The recent EUTPD and plain packaging legislation made the tobacco category harder and more time consuming to manage on a daily basis.

Owners, Rais and his brother Asif Patel knew that improvements could be made and looked at the use of smart tobacco gantries to speed up service, stock control and reduce shrinkage in this key area of their business.

Navarra’s range of smart tobacco gantries were considered the best solution and they are already integrated into TLM’s range of EPOS solutions which Raiscorp used with their Spar back office system. It meant installation and connectivity was simple.

Speeding up the sales operation with the link to TLM’s Iridium 2 EPOS tills the smart Gantry system offered the best options for the company with a range of system sizes to suit each store's sales volume. The business opted to go for 1.2 and 1.8m wide smart gantries as these would hold all their tobacco stock for a week and ensure the full range of cigarettes and RYO could be maintained. Restocking on a weekly basis is handled by senior management at each site so ending any shrinkage and stock losses. Daily audit and stock re ordering is handled via the TLM EPOS system linked to the Spar back office so it is far more efficient than manual counting and ordering and provides significant savings in time.