Kaisercraft

In the last 15 years, Kaisercraft has undergone a significant transformation, shifting from wholesale to retail as its core focus. "We decided that retail was one area that we could really grow in," says Mark Sears, Senior Executive at Kaisercraft. "Over the last 15 years, that’s grown quite significantly." Today, the business operates 110 physical retail stores across Australia, spanning major metropolitan and regional locations in every state and territory. While a small wholesale presence remains, retail is now their primary channel.

Business case

Craft as a hobby declined over time, making the original wholesale-heavy model less sustainable. "We found people generally had less time for crafting," says Sears. "Which meant that we had to diversify our product range." To continue growing, Kaisercraft expanded beyond craft and scrapbooking into giftware, homewares, fashion and other household needs.

As its retail network expanded rapidly, Kaisercraft accumulated multiple disconnected systems, including a custom POS system for store sales and store-level inventory, a head office system for financials and head-office inventory, a separate payroll system, and a warehouse system. "We probably had up to half a dozen different systems that needed to talk to each other," says Sears.

These systems required frequent manual data transfers, creating data inconsistencies, human error, delays in reporting, and a heavy monthly reconciliation effort for finance teams. "There was a lot of human intervention when transferring data from one system to another," says Sears. "Every time information is pulled out of one system and loaded into another, there’s room for error."

These limitations also made it difficult to achieve accurate, real-time visibility across sales, inventory, and financials.

With high seasonal demand, particularly around Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and Christmas, system downtime posed another major risk. Internet outages or server slowdowns during peak periods directly affected customer service. "If we’re in the middle of December and we have a system shutdown, it’s absolutely devastating to our stores," says Sears. "Having people line up at the counter and not being able to process their sales leaves a sour taste and they end up walking out the door."

Solution

With the support of local LS Retail partner FUJIFILM MicroChannel, Kaisercraft implemented LS Central to consolidate its core retail and operational functions into one centralized system. "Having one system was our biggest issue over the years," says Sears. "That was one of the major reasons we were looking at changing systems, and LS Central was one that offered a lot of the functions that we needed."

Key capabilities that addressed Kaisercraft’s challenges included:

• A single, unified platform replacing multiple disconnected systems
• Real-time sales and inventory data across all stores
• Centralized promotions management, supporting frequent changes and rapid response to sales performance

Another critical requirement was hybrid POS functionality. "We really wanted a system that operated both online and offline," says Sears. "If the internet drops out, we can still operate crucial POS functions."

The implementation covered all 110 stores, representing a major system change across both stores and head office operations. " Changing all systems at once was challenging," says Sears. "But everyone worked really well together to make it happen."

Benefits

Since implementing LS Central, Kaisercraft now operates with a single source of truth, supporting both day-to-day retail operations and long-term planning. "Having one centralized system has eliminated 99% of human interaction required for data input and the transfer of information between systems to complete workflows," says Sears. "Our results are far more reliable now."

• Real-time sales and reporting

"Real-time sales and reporting are absolutely critical in a business like ours," says Sears. "Being able to respond quickly to sales and promotions is absolutely critical." LS Central provides immediate visibility into promotion performance, featured products sales, and results at category, department, and SKU level. This allows teams to quickly adjust promotions and pricing when performance does not meet expectations.

• Reliable data from one system

By removing manual data transfers between systems, LS Central significantly reduced human error. "Previously, the finance team spent hours each month just reconciling stock and sales," says Sears. "Now the data we get out, we know it is clean."

Purchase orders, inventory movements, and sales now flow through one system end to end, resulting in more reliable financial reporting, accurate cost-of-goods tracking, and greater confidence in decision-making.

• Support for complex inventory

Kaisercraft manages a complex inventory where products arrive as assorted boxes containing multiple SKUs, shipped directly to stores, and only separated into individual SKUs once opened in-store."

LS Central supports this flow by managing assortment breakdowns through the warehouse and store systems. "It allows us to move products through the warehouse and out to stores much more quickly," says Sears.

Looking ahead, Kaisercraft is focused on further optimization around replenishment, demand forecasting, and B2C integration. "Replenishment optimization and demand forecasting are two areas we still need to really nail down," says Sears. "We believe we’re heading well and truly in the right direction."