Vend lets hip-kid spend less time on admin & more with the community.
Watch HIP-KID'S story
Home & Gifts
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Single-store
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US
United States
hip-kid is a store with a purpose - to provide socially conscious products and make it easy for their community to give back.
Single outlet children’s clothing, toys, and accessories store in Chappaqua, NY focused on purchasing with a purpose.
hip-kid.comAt a Glance
Inventory counts that used to take days are now completed in a few hours.
Using Vend, hip-kid can now:
The Challenge
Like many independent retailers, the team at hip-kid didn’t open their store to focus on back office operations. They wanted their store to be a community space, with a purpose.
Looking at hip-kid's calendar of events you might think it was a community center rather than a children’s store. With baby music classes, birthday parties, and charity lemonade stands, it’s really a little bit of both. Owner Trish Kallman has worked with manager Lori Lazarus to build a store that gives back through mindful purchasing and community engagement.
With their focus on finding socially responsible brands to appeal to the discerning shoppers of Chappaqua, Trish and Lori don’t have the time or the desire to spend hours on back office systems. “People just come and chat and hang out with us,” says Trish. “We don’t want to spend that much time behind the counter.”
With no previous background in retail, they needed a system that would ensure their store ran smoothly and helped them make smart business decisions to support growth.
“We wanted a system that would be easy for us to use, that would help us run the business, make smart decisions, without taking time away from our customers and community activities.”
Lori Lazarus, Store Manager
The Solution
The hip-kid team picked Vend for its ease-of-use, real-time reporting, and integrated payment options.
After initially opening with an expensive, complicated, legacy point of sale system, the hip-kid team wanted to simplify their back office operations with a solution focused on the needs of the independent retailer.
Vend came highly recommended. It was easy for their accountant to use and allowed them to run real time reports, wherever they were. While it easily tracked inventory from their array of suppliers, it was also flexible enough to manage their party bookings and classes. Vend also integrates with Worldpay for payments. With competitive processing rates, the integration saves time at every transaction, and at end of day closing.
Setting up Vend also turned out to be a breeze. “It’s overwhelming sometimes to set up a point of sale system,” explains Lori. “But Vend just made me really comfortable and really at ease."
“When it came to the tools we needed to run the store, we found that Vend and Worldpay checked all the boxes. Beyond that, support from both companies has been incredible.”
Trish Kallman, owner
hip-kid brings their solution together with the best in retail
The Results
Vastly improved inventory management and reporting gives Trish and Lori more time for what they’re passionate about.
hip-kid holds a lot of inventory, SKUs, and variants. Their focus on socially responsible vendors mean they often work with smaller suppliers, each of whom need to be tracked separately, making quarterly and yearly inventory counts a pain. Using the Vend Scanner app on iPhone makes it easy for them to quickly run inventory counts, by scanning item tags that automatically upload to their Vend account. What used to take days and cause lost sales can now be done easily during quiet periods throughout the day.
Besides the time saved on inventory, Trish and Lori are using Vend to help them plan for future seasons. Product performance reports from last year shows them when to start stocking seasonal items and previous years' sales reports help to plan for holiday activities and staffing.
Most importantly, Trish says Vend helps them do more of what they love. “It allows us to spend time on the other side of the counter, where we’d rather be."
“As first time retailers, Vend not only helps us run the business, it shows us how to run it well. The data in the system means we can plan for the future.”
Trish Kallman, owner
