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 Retail Perspectives
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The Tussauds Group
 The Tussauds Group is one of the world's leading visitor attraction businesses with 11 million visitors in 2004 in the UK and 15 million worldwide. Its brands are well-recognised international icons such a Madame Tussauds and the British Airways London Eye, national leaders like Alton Towers or precisely targeted regional leaders like Thorpe Park, Heide Park in Germany, Chessington World of Adventures and Warwick Castle.
Recently, Tussauds decided that it was time to raise the standard of its retail operation, to drive sales, reduce stock levels, improve margin management and enhance the retail experience for its customers.
Andy Davies, Group Commercial Director, Tussauds Group explains: “Our challenge was to raise our retail standards to those of the high street. This is not easy in an environment that has to ‘re-invent’ itself each year. Our parks close down at the end of each season and re-open 4 months later – each time with new front-line staff and a large number of new products - that gives us 8 months in which to trade.”
“To meet our objectives of improving the guest experience and making it easier for our staff to deliver for customers, we realised that we required an entirely new system. It had to be operationally simple and intuitive, as our selling period offers limited opportunity for staff training. It also had to make it easier for our buyers to ensure that our best selling lines are always in stock during the trading period.”
Its narrow sales window makes it important for Tussauds to stock the correct products and have those products readily available to sell. Its system also has to provide accurate, real time information and give proper visibility of all product lines and ‘best sellers.’
Davies continues: “Our starting point was we thought we had too many SKUs (Stock Keeping Units), around 5,000. Given our market and selling period, we don’t need to be a range retailer, we should stick to the products that we know are going to sell and focus on the availability and merchandising standards of these products at all our outlets.”
Tussauds started by identifying key customer needs that drive through their requirements. For example, there are equipping products: these help get guests ready to enjoy their day. Equipping products include cameras, fleeces, sunscreen, waterproof ponchos and bottles of water. These are mainly sold during the first few hours of the day and availability is key during this time.
The other key items are gift products that guests buy to capture and remember their experience. This demand for gifts and souvenirs picks up dramatically towards the day’s end. Once guests have enjoyed their day, they are ready to buy souvenirs of their visit, so towards late afternoon, sales of gifts, souvenirs and self-treat items increase once people have experienced the rides and attractions.
Davies continues: “We wanted to understand exactly how the peaks and troughs worked to help us gear up to match product types to the demand, to improve labour scheduling and better serve to our customers.”
“We believed we had too much range but where and how do you make the changes? What should the range look like? How do you better manage stock, reduce the number of SKUs, make the best sellers readily available and eliminate the overstock of slow-selling items at the end of the trading period? We knew that if we could address these issues then the sales growth and margin improvement would follow.”
“We are experts in running attractions not retail system specialists,” observes Davies. “As a team we knew what we wanted from an output point of view but we struggled to translate this into a merchandising management or EPoS point of view. What we had before was a labour intensive, manual system built around our way of doing things. Therefore, the brief needed to capture the basics of this rather than replicate what we already had.”
“However, if the brief was too loose, built around too many blue-sky elements we could have ended up with a theoretically fantastic system that would do far more than we needed but unable address our basic needs. It was at this point that our IT team recommended we approach Paul Mason Consulting (PMC) to help us through the process. PMC have in depth experience in helping organisations make the right systems selection decisions. They are all retailers who have worked in the retail business and they understand the environment.”
PMC helped Tussauds define the brief for their Merchandise Management System, managed the tender process and suggested key vendors. PMC also provided Tussauds with a short list of vendors that could provide the EPoS solution Tussauds needed, then analysed each one in terms of benefits and deliverables.
Davies states: “The advantages in using PMC are numerous. They helped us look at our processes and take an objective approach. Without that approach it’s tempting to say, ‘That’s the way we’ve always done it, so that’s the way we have do it’. PMC challenged the way that things were done and helped us reach objective decisions.”
“They helped us to define exactly what we needed and related that to the solutions available in the market. They examined our needs today and in the immediate future, and made sure that we went with the right solution.”
Once they had completed the definition, tender and review processes, Tussauds finally selected Retalix EPoS and a Futura Merchandise Management System.
Davies concludes: “We did not have the luxury of a trial period or a parallel run, because once we open, that’s it we have to trade through the one system. Everything had to be in place by January ready for our buyers to place orders for the start of the next season.”
“The system went live at the end of March and gave immediate benefits throughout the next season. The impact going forward is a measurable reduction in stock holding – a 40% reduction in one year.”
“This has unclogged the system, improved cash management, and given clarity and space for the key products customers want. I am very confident going in to the new season. Without PMC’s advice and assistance I doubt that we would have done so well.”
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