A growing specialty retail firm sought a unique business solution for their security needs. The system had to interface one day with point-of-sale (POS), had to be a Web-based application that also allowed for remote viewing and management help but would not be Windows-based.
It turned out that Petland was barking up the right tree.
Whether your best friend is furry or feathered, or even if its best feature is colorful scales, there is a good chance that you adopted it at a retail pet store. Maintaining the health and well-being of live animals thus presents a very different challenge than in most retail facilities, which only deal in non-living inventory.
One of the more renowned pet stores in North America is Petland, Inc., a privately held Ohio corporation founded in 1967. In the early 1970s, it began franchising pet stores, and a decade later, expanded its presence into Canada and beyond.
Today, Petland has 120 stores in the United States and 55 in foreign markets, including Canada, Japan, France, Chile and South Africa. Petland Superstores, based in Calgary, Canada, owns 18 of those franchises.
“Since we have live animals in our stores we are very concerned about their safety,” said Trevor Brown, director of IT for Petland Superstores, “as well that of our customers and staff. We wanted to be able to provide a level of security to them as well as provide a level of loss prevention.” Brown manages the IT for all locations in Central and Western Canada, from Winnipeg to Vancouver Island.