A-T Lastenturva

A-T Lastenturva is a Finnish company founded in 1999 that specializes in children’s products and operates both online and in five locations across Finland. The company became a Confirma customer when it needed a point-of-sale solution that would allow it to manage its brick-and-mortar stores and online store through a single system. Now, A-T Lastenturva uses both the Jeemly point-of-sale system and the Flowvy online store.

The company’s CEO,Mika Rimpiläinen, explains that the brick-and-mortar store’s previous point-of-sale software and the online store were not integrated, which made managing inventory levels difficult as the business began to grow online. If something was sold online, it had to be manually reconciled at the register.

Rimpiläinen notes that they had to make inventory management easier. Without a more efficient system, managing the entire operation would have ultimately been impossible.

The online store and the physical store complement each other

In addition to its online store, A-T Lastenturva has five retail locations: in Helsinki, Vantaa, Oulu, Tampere, and Jyväskylä. The large store in Varisto, Vantaa, also houses the online store as well as its own maintenance and repair service.

– We have focused on offering a wide and high-quality product selection, as well as excellent customer service, both online and in our stores. People trust our expertise, and sharing our personal experiences in particular also gives customers a sense of security. We also receive ongoing training in both sales and products, says Taru Meriläinen, who works at the Helsinki store.

Both Rimpiläinen and Meriläinen feel that customers value face-to-face interaction during the purchasing process. Even if they’ve compared products online, many people prefer to buy from a brick-and-mortar store.

– Parents want to try out strollers and car seats before deciding to buy. It’s easy to drive to the Vantaa megastore, where you can test-fit a car seat in your own car with the help of a salesperson, Rimpiläinen explains.

Point-of-Sale and Online Store in a Single System

Confirma has been a partner of A-T Lastenturva for over ten years.

– When we became Confirma customers, we got exactly what we wanted: an online store and a point-of-sale system integrated into a single platform. We can now view both the products in our online store and store-specific inventory levels in one place, and we can review sales, revenue, and inventory tracking after the fact.

Rimpiläinen says that they also receive ongoing support from the Confirma team in developing their online store. They stay in touch weekly and meet in person at least once a year.

– The most recent major development project for the online store was completed about a year ago, when we redesigned the product navigation. We collaborate on search engine advertising and hold weekly discussions about it. Together, we monitor how the online store’s conversion rates are performing in both paid and organic traffic, and at the same time, we’re exploring ways to further improve the store’s sales performance.

A Solution to a Surprisingly Wide Range of Problems

Rimpiläinen is pleased with the way Confirma's development team has been able to meet the company's changing needs.

– For example, we found a solution for our rental service that means we don’t have to create a separate rental agreement form. The Jeemly point-of-sale system integrates the rental form directly into the POS and calculates the totals automatically.

Rimpiläinen has noticed that it doesn’t always immediately occur to people that a particular issue could be resolved through the point-of-sale system. This was the case, for example, when A-T Lastenturva was opening a store in conjunction with Stockmann.

– We had to integrate Stockmann’s loyalty program with our point-of-sale system so that their loyal customers could also earn points at our store. I thought that would be quite a challenge, but surprisingly, we found a solution.

– Our point-of-sale system now automatically sends loyalty program data to Stockmann as part of a daily process. We also report monthly customer counts and sales figures to them. It’s important to us that this data is easily accessible in the point-of-sale system and that it’s easy to forward.