CJ Lang and Son's SPAR

Based in Dundee, Scotland, CJ Lang & Son Limited has been serving Scottish communities for over 100 years now. In 1993, they acquired the SPAR store franchise and became the country’s largest independent retailing and distribution company. As of today, this family-owned business has over 300 convenience stores across the country, serving Scottish people and providing excellent service.

Requirements

As the country’s official SPAR wholesaler, CJ Lang & Son Limited wanted to find a way to simplify tasks and reduce the amount of time that managers have to spend in the office. Instead, they want to find a way for managers to spend more time on the shop floor and with the customers.

Upon seeing SOLUM solutions, CJ Lang & Son Limited decided that it was time to explore electronic shelf edge labels. They brought SOLUM ESL to help modernize and streamline responsibilities in their SPAR stores.

Results

CJ Lang & Son Limited stated that they have modernized their store overnight by bringing SOLUM electronic shelf labels. They also emphasized the main benefit of utilizing SOLUM labels, which is the significant amount of tasks and responsibilities they help reduce in their store operations.

The team at CJ Lang & Son Limited leveraged these electronic labels across the store, from the various label sizes to the robust features they come with. The 4-color labels provided SPAR another opportunity to communicate with the shoppers as well as a chance to sell ad space to suppliers.

They also took the chance to explore digital LED screens, where they noted that the impact is fantastic, especially when catching the eye of customers and taking the store to another level of modernization. CJ Lang & Son also utilized SOLUM AIMS, a cloud-based software, which allowed them to synchronize price updates across all of their stores in just one place.

IT Director, Graham Murdoch, stated “One store manager who has spent 43 years in retail has told me that this is the best solution they’ve ever been given… I think this is the single biggest technology investment the company has ever made.”

Murdoch also emphasized their return on investment and how many hours they were able to save thanks to SOLUM ESL, especially if it’s promotion weeks. They were able to save up to two days of work across their 104 company-owned stores, or over 45,000 hours in a year. With all these hours saved, they can reinvest time and labor into profit-generating activities. This demonstrates that they’ve made an investment not just for now, but for the future as well.