Kent Kwik convenience stores are monitoring lottery tickets more efficiently with the adoption of PDI/Lottery software.
Following a successful period of beta-testing, West Texas-based The Kent Cos. has officially completed its rollout of the PDI/Lottery software system to all 39 of its Texas-based Kent Kwik sites.
PDI is a leading provider of enterprise-class automation software systems to the convenience retail, petroleum marketing and foodservice industries.
This latest addition to PDI’s retail product suite significantly reduces the time needed to receive, count, audit and review scratch-off lottery ticket inventory. PDI/Lottery also enables store personnel to easily manage inventory in vending machines, while also reconciling deliveries and activations for books loaded in the machine.
Using proprietary scan technology, c-stores can capture accurate information about lottery inventory while reducing the amount of time spent on the inventory process itself. “Our old method, which required us to count using pen and paper, would take about 30 minutes,” said Ross Gentis, IT manager for The Kent Cos. “With the lottery software, we use the PDI handheld to scan the barcode on each ticket. The process has been reduced from 30 minutes to less than two.”
The barcode on each ticket provides all the information a c-store needs to track the inventory in more detail than traditional item inventory, including game, book and ticket number. Since personnel are not required to manually enter data, there are less opportunities for human error. “The biggest problem we had was that we were spending thousands to recoup five cents. From accounting to store-level staff, we had several people trying to track just one inventory item. Since shifting to this method, the tracking is done every shift, and we have a more accurate view of sales and losses in real time.”
“We are thrilled to serve our customers with this new product,” said Greg Gilkerson, president and CEO of PDI. “Scratch-off lottery tickets are a notoriously high shrink, low margin inventory item. Giving managers the tools to more efficiently and accurately manage that entire process—from receiving to audits—is a huge win, and we’re happy to deliver it.”
The Kent Cos. is also using the new wireless capabilities introduced with PDI/Enterprise 8, which allow managers to post counts from the sales floor directly to the back office.
