Epicor Software Corporation, a global leader in business software solutions for retail, manufacturing, distribution, and services organizations, today announced that Vestis Retail Group, which operates Bob's Stores, Eastern Mountain Sports (EMS) and Sport Chalet, has selected Epicor Retail Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions to power its expanding retail sporting goods apparel and equipment business.
Vestis' selection of Epicor Retail solutions comes on the heels of its most recent acquisition of Sport Chalet this past August. The combination of Sport Chalet with Vestis' East Coast-based retailers Bob's and EMS creates one of the country's largest outdoor-focused retail groups, with more than 150 stores and approximately $800 million in annual sales. Vestis, through its three distinct brands and a national footprint, offers an impressive assortment of branded technical, performance and lifestyle merchandise, and customer and specialty services combined with a unique and scalable online presence.
Mergers and acquisitions can present information technology challenges for retailers needing to support omni-channel retail demands. Bob's, EMS and Sport Chalet were existing Epicor Retail customers; Vestis was interested in merging all operations into a single platform to gain operational efficiencies and wanted to consolidate vendors and avoid the pains of merging multiple legacy software offerings. This was achieved through Vestis' selection of the Epicor Retail SaaS solution, which also offered the additional benefits of expedited deployment, and a lower total cost of ownership and improved cash flow via the software as a service subscription model.
Vestis will leverage an extensive array of Epicor Retail solutions, including Store (point of sale), Mobile, Enterprise Selling, CRM, Merchandise Planning, Assortment Planning, Merchandising, Warehouse Management, Sales Audit, and Retail Analytics. Epicor's scalable software as a service solutions in combination with the complementary Epicor retail transaction, enterprise and analytics systems, enable retailers to optimize the customer experience for consumers across a growing number of mobile devices, channels and interaction points. Offering one view of products, one view of customers, and one view of transactions, retail operations are updated in real-time, are available from any point of interaction, and integrate multiple transaction and data points to fulfill the business and customer demands in today's omni-channel retail environment.
"It's critical for Vestis' growth and operational efficiencies to operate our business on single common platform; Epicor Retail has provided the retail infrastructure to drive growth and our customer experience initiatives at all three of the Vestis Retail Group sporting goods brands -- Bob's, EMS and Sport Chalet -- for years now," said Ken Mamack, vice president of IT, Vestis Retail Group. "So we wanted to continue our relationship there, but we saw an opportunity to leverage Epicor Retail SaaS solutions to bring even more efficiency and less complexity to our retail operations with easier integration. The Epicor Retail SaaS solution provides the right foundation and fastest time-to-value to support our business."
"Cloud-based solutions are a tremendous panacea to organizations that are experiencing growth -- either organically or due to mergers and acquisitions -- and especially a boon to retailers who must integrate their operations to support the needs of today's empowered consumers," said Noel Goggin, executive vice president and general manager, Epicor Retail. "We're very pleased to add the Vestis Retail Group to the Epicor Retail Cloud client roster and to play a part in helping the company make good on its vision of an integrated and complementary retail enterprise, with improved synergies and operational efficiencies."