Wholesale Nursery Offering Blooming Annuals and Exceptional Customer Service
Florence, South Carolina-based Forest Lake Greenhouses is a locally owned and operated retail garden center and wholesale nursery whose mission is to cultivate growth and happiness by connecting people to the beautiful offerings of the natural world through horticulture.
While the business is proud to offer an inspiring environment to shop and enjoy the natural world, eCommerce is firmly on the list of strategic priorities as the retailer grows.
"In spring 2020, many people were looking to collect their orders via curbside pickup," explains Luke Venable, the company's General Manager. "That was very challenging as we were spending a lot of time on the phone with customers confirming stock and availability while also offering customer support to the customers in the store," he adds. "We wanted to create a seamless online experience that would ease the workload for our staff and improve the customer experience."
Using Propello, Forest Lake Greenhouses removed several manual processes from its operations. As a result, they are also realizing significant improvements in inventory management, the point of sale (POS) system, and expanded eCommerce checkout capabilities.
The system also significantly reduced customer wait times in the store by opening new and integrated registers.
Moving from cash registers to Propello has been a huge positive change. We used to have separate card terminals that weren't linked to our registers, but now we've reduced a lot of manual entry associated with card processing—and saved money in the process.
"Moving from cash registers to Propello has been a huge positive change," Luke says. "We used to have separate card terminals that weren't linked to our registers, but now we've reduced a lot of manual entry associated with card processing—and saved money in the process."
Luke and the team are looking to further streamline the checkout process by adding barcodes to at least 90% of their products. These incremental improvements are taking the pressure off cashiers, improving the staff's experience, and aiding retention.
Epicor Propello analytical tools are also built into essential functions like inventory, sales tracking, and customer management. The data insights are helping Luke make smarter decisions on merchandising, pricing, and promotions.
Being able to capture data and view analytics for our business has been a big game changer. Removing manual processes and streamlining our operation means we’re in a strong position to grow our business both in-store and through eCommerce.
Forest Lake Greenhouses also moved to QuickBooks online accounting that integrates with Propello, thus automating a large part of their payroll function.
"Being able to capture data and view analytics for our business has been a big game changer," Luke shares. "Removing manual processes and streamlining our operation means we're in a strong position to grow our business in-store and through eCommerce."
