Antler Ltd

Antler has been in the luxury travel luggage and holiday luggage business for over 80 years. It was founded in 1866 as a Birmingham-based manufacturer of leather bicycle saddles. Today, Antler luggage is sold in the UK, Australia, South Africa and Hong Kong, amongst many other countries around the world.

Leading luggage specialist Antler has rolled out the Merlin^® Retail Management System from Merlin Software to its UK and Northern Ireland outlets as part of a complete retail IT systems upgrade.

The Merlin^® retail software enables Antler to track each individual product from the warehouse to the store or on-line point of purchase using unique barcodes. Antler's range of 800 suitcases, bags and handbags are sold via 39 concessions in department stores and garden centres, 39 factory outlet shopping centres and malls and 3 airports.

Gary Capell, Antler's retail director comments, "With our previous DOS-based tills we were limited as to the degree of insight we got from sales trends. Merlin Software has provided us with a solution which enables us to capture higher volumes of accurate and up-to-date management information which can be used by a range of business functions to support our growth strategy."

The Merlin® retail software is linked up to Antler's central server enabling store and regional managers to access up-to-date sales and stock reports via a secure Virtual Private Network. It enables business analysts at head office to drill down into the data to help them make astute buying, merchandising and promotional decisions. Capell continued, "Using Merlin®, our staff can email orders directly to our suppliers. This will significantly improve on-shelf availability of our expanding product range." Antler has recently begun selling accessories such as flight socks, wallets and passport holders and wished to retain its existing large merchandising space at the point of sale to encourage impulse purchasing. Luggage is increasingly being seen as a fashion accessory and sales of smaller suitcases in particular are rising in line with the trend for more frequent, short breaks.