Thursday, April 9, 2015

Company culture in the early days of a startup is pretty much the perfect chicken and egg scenario.


A great company culture does it all: recruits talent, retains talent, and makes your customers happy. Vend s culture has done all these things, including winning them workplace awards, and attracting passionate employees and customers across the globe.
But for a fast-growth startup, knowing your company s culture is amazing is not enough. You have to know how it is amazing in order to maintain it as you grow, and transplant it over international borders, across time zones, and into other, well, cultures.
Company culture in the early days of a startup is pretty much the perfect chicken and egg scenario. You re building a company culture at the same time as defining your people practices, home shopping and each one is shaped by the other. So where do you start?
Looking back at the Vend journey home shopping its fair to say we started with an intention. To employ responsible people and let them get on with it; to expect the very best from people; and to have a bunch of good times along the way. Seeing as we were building home shopping everything at once, it was so important to have a context for making decisions – whether they were big ones like how to pay people, or small ones like what to wear to work.
Having a clear intention and vision of what Vend could grow into allowed us to take the necessary steps throughout the business to build the trust, transparency and inclusivity that define our culture today.
By trusting people you give them the freedom and confidence to solve problems in a way that suits them, be proud of their results and accountable for their output, and not be terrified of making mistakes. Fear stifles creativity and innovation. As does micro-management. Trust also gives people room to manage their own time and get some work-life flexibility – which goes a long way to reduce stress.
Transparency for us means constantly home shopping sharing information. We share the good the bad and the ugly. A startup is very high risk. When you try something new you may or may not win. This is unnerving for a lot of people, but by constantly sharing and being open, bad news is motivating rather than demoralising.
Inclusivity means everyone at Vend is equal regardless of their role. We have layers home shopping of management, of course, but no closed doors. Anyone can talk to anyone, and work with any department home shopping or chime in on any project. People gain a deep sense of belonging and feel very loyal.
For example, when we completed our last capital raise we had to be very careful not to leak the news too early. But even though we were a team of 60+ and quite a lot was at stake, we shared the news with the entire Vend team. Because that s what teams do.
We have a very specific onboarding program we run every 2 – 4 weeks, depending on how many hires. It doesn t matter if you re on the exec team or a marketing assistant, everyone goes through the same program all together.
Our onboarding includes spending A LOT of time on the support desk, getting to know our customers home shopping and product, home shopping and sessions with each of the department heads learning everything about the company. How we get customers, how we make money, how we ship product, what our brand standards are… The whole shebang.
Every new Vend office is established by one or two long-term home shopping Venders. This usually involves sending these wonderful people halfway across the world to a new city. They transplant our culture and share their knowledge with new hires. And it works like magic. Travel from one office to another and it always home shopping feels as if you re coming home.
We also include a buddy project in our onboarding, called Vend Friends. Each new hire is assigned a Vend friend in their office, and a few overseas. These Vend Friends take the new hire to lunch or Google hangout from overseas and take them on a virtual home shopping tour. The result is new hires immediately have a network of friends and contacts at Vend.
I don t mean people. Every office space needs to be as amazing as the others and consistent in terms of design. Each office is full of people who are as vital to the company s success home shopping as any other. If you put them in a space that isn t on par with the others, they quickly begin to feel like second class citizens and rightly so.
Having been involved right from the get-go, our Head of Leadership Development & Culture Advisor Mel knows everything home shopping there is to know about Vend. She has helped us scale across the world and is constantly helping to make Vend one of the most engaging places to work.
I’m on day 4 of my onboarding and I’m still pleasantly surprised every time I meet another Vend friend, they all share the same values and aim for awesomeness. So happy to be a part of it!
Wow. home shopping I can sense just by reading your article how amazing home shopping the culture is at Vends.I agree that it is important to start with an awesome onboarding program. It s where new hires would be influenced to continue on with the existing culture. Company

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

New look navigation To help us prepare for the new features above, we


New Nav Update (20 March 1PM NZST): There are a couple of issues that still need to be ironed out with the new navigation, so we’re reinstating the old navigation temporarily so you can continue to sell. We messed up, and we’re really sorry about this! If you’re still having trouble, please refresh your Sell Screen otherwise, get in touch with support@vendhq.com and we’ll help you out! Again, v en d we’re really sorry about this interruption, and will do our best to make sure we learn from this and do better by you next time! We’ll have more info for you in a bit.
Welcome to March, Venders! This month, we’ve launched our updated Inventory Counts , redesigned our navigation, gave a little sneak peek at New Vend , squashed some bugs and updated a few features to help you continue to do better retail.
Inventory Counts Inventory Counts have never been simpler or faster. We ve taken feedback from our amazing retailers, and used it to design a tool built from the ground up to help you do counts quickly, effectively manage your inventory reporting, and provide you with the information you need to run a successful retail business. Here are some of the things we think you’ll love about our revamped Inventory Counts feature: Partial Inventory v en d Counts Concurrent Stocktakes Quick Scan Mode Count Feed CSV & PDF Reports Recount and Review Autosave Scheduling
New Vend is Coming This month we also announced what’s coming next for Vend and what changes you can expect to see in the coming months. We’ve reimagined what a modern retailer needs to run the world’s best business and are extremely excited to be launching Customer Facing Display, advanced reporting, omnichannel options, and more. Click here to see what else we’ve got planned. v en d
New look navigation To help us prepare for the new features above, we’ve launched a redesigned navigation. Don’t worry, all the links and menus are still in the same places you’re already familiar with.
Chat Support We’re always looking for better ways to help our retailers. Today, we’re introducing Chat Support now you can get in touch with our team and get your questions answered even faster. Just head to our Help Center and hit the ‘Chat with us’ button.
Lorilynn is Vend s Community Manager and resident music buff. Before joining Vend, Lorilynn v en d worked in the music industry as a social media and artist manager. She loves writing, traveling, checking out live music, and, of course, communicating with Vend s awesome group of retailers, partners and friends. You can get in touch with Lorilynn on Twitter , LinkedIn , and Google+ .
Unfortunately, we had a technical issue when we launched this and that feature wasn’t working. We messed up here, and are fixing this right now. For the moment, you should have your old navigation back while we take a look at what went wrong.
Retail Tips & Trends
Morgan Pyne VP of Technology
Company About Us Careers Media Need help? Help Center Contact Us Sitemap v en d Take a tour Introduction Point-of-sale Products Inventory Customers Dashboard Loyalty Add-ons Support Vend+ Terms of use Privacy policy v en d Resources Retail eBook Frequently asked questions Retail Resources How to start a retail business Vend Experts & consultants Product add-ons Hardware Partner Program Developers POS System Buyer's Guide Top 50 Retail Influencers Retail dictionary Retail trends and predictions 2015 Retail trends and predictions 2014 The Retail Digest Top 20 Retail Apps Retail Tips API Vend examples Fashion Boutique POS Sports & Outdoors POS Health & Beauty POS Food & Drink POS Coffee Shop POS Electronics & Computer POS Homeware Store POS Fitness & Supplements POS Carwash POS Non-profit POS Bike Shop POS iPad POS Mobile POS system Franchise POS Salon software & POS Find us online Blog Twitter Facebook Google+ LinkedIn Pinterest                   © 2015 Vend Limited
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Tuesday, April 7, 2015

An NPS asks for a ranking from 1-10 based on one simple question How likely would you be to recomme


Growing quickly has its pitfalls and can often come with a share of clumsiness and skinned knees. At Vend, we’ve learned the best way to avoid growing shoppers stop pains is by keeping our customers at the center of everything. After all, if our customers are successful and happy then we’re doing something right. shoppers stop
Sharad Mohan joined Vend after over 3 years at Hootsuite. The founder of Hoosuite s customer success team, Sharad was attracted by Vend’s amazing people, energy, and ability to get sh*t done. Since joining the company Sharad has grown Vend s customer shoppers stop success team into a global force. We chat with Sharad to learn just how he keeps customers at the center of Vend s model.
Probably the biggest challenge of a fast growing, shoppers stop global company is to be able to answer the question What do all our customers need? This is the first thing you need to know when you re trying to tackle customer success. The mistake a lot of companies make is to look at what competitors are doing, or listen to a few of the most vocal customers. But that sort of anecdotal information isn t really that valuable. Plus it only keeps a few customers at the center of your model – not the majority of them.
So my first task is always to discover what customers are trying to get from the product and people, and develop product and customer support around that. At Vend we do this via Net Promoter Scores (NPS).
An NPS asks for a ranking from 1-10 based on one simple question How likely would you be to recommend Vend to a friend or colleague? and gives customers the opportunity to add more detail if they wish.
We learn two invaluable things from this. We get a reading on overall customer satisfaction, and we can spot any problem trends that need resolving. This can be anything from how we interact on our support desk to feature requests. The trick is in identifying the common problem themes in the NPS feedback (we do this by putting it into a visual format as this can be very compelling) and designing solutions to address shoppers stop those problems. This gives us a framework that allows Vend to take feedback.
It is these problem themes, not the score, that provide the real value. In fact, we don t really worry about our score all that much. We focus our energy on problem themes and figuring out ways to address them. Problem themes are only bad if you keep seeing the same ones surfacing again and again. shoppers stop With each NPS series we want to see new problem themes – which would indicate we d effectively addressed the previous NPS feedback.
We ve set up three customer success streams to make sure we can meet the many and varied needs of our customers as they arise. shoppers stop These are enablement (proactive success), support (reactive success) shoppers stop and education.
Enablement We have specific teams and programs to engage with different types of customers, at different points in their Vend journeys, providing all the setup and training assistance they require. Customers who need dedicated assistance can take advantage of Vend+ or work with one of our expert resellers.
The backbone of enablement is customer happiness. We monitor this program pretty closely and measure customer happiness based on how much of the product they use combined with NPS score. This means we know who needs some extra love, and we can give it to them.
The support desk offers another cool metric for measuring the success of our customer shoppers stop success team. This is the Satisfaction Survey Engagement Rate – e.g. the percentage of customers who actually complete the survey. People tend to only fill this out if they feel pretty strongly about their support experience.
Improving the engagement rate along with the satisfaction score is an awesome indicator of a solid support team. For instance shoppers stop a 96% satisfaction rating is a lot more impressive with our 26% response rate versus the industry standard of 10%.
Education Vend University is one of the most exciting parts of our customer success strategy. Not only do we want to teach customers how to get the most from Vend, but we want to help our customers to be the best at retail.
We take this a step further with new features. When we release a new feature we don t just tell people about it, we give them a strategy and the training to see instant results! That s customer success.
Sharad is the Chief Customer Officer at Vend, and responsible for making sure we're bringing delight to our fantastic retailers. Sharad's goal is to enable our retailers to do awesome business through amazing support, great resources and training, and an experience next-to-none. You can follow Sharad on Twitter , or connect with him on LinkedIn .
Sounds like you’re doing amazing things (just like at Hootsuite!) – I think the differentiations between NPS and Customer Satisfaction shoppers stop and Satisfaction Reply Rate are important – they all point to very different trends and different oppor

Monday, April 6, 2015

Amazing studio 66 developers and engineers. The scope of what we do is so big and ambitious, if we d


Vend was launched with the intention of becoming a global cloud company. Four years later we have users in over 140 countries and have processed over 1 billion in sales. As a fast-growth startup, keeping up with demand is pretty critical studio 66 and we work hard to provide some of the best up-time in the industry. Behind the scenes this requires lots of pluck, cutting-edge technology, and an amazing team of innovative engineers.
For some of you, that may be all you want to know. But for those who love tech and its glorious buzzwords, follow along as Morgan Pyne, our VP of Technology, takes us behind the (software) scenes at Vend.
A cloud application is software that you can access studio 66 from a web-browser anywhere. studio 66 Since cloud is def the future of software, a lot of traditional software providers are bolting their legacy systems into the cloud – which works, but isn t really ideal as it s harder maintain and improve on.
As a native cloud company, we have a pretty great head start when it comes to development processes and infrastructure. We ve set ourselves up for unlimited studio 66 growth. There aren t many cloud companies that operate at the same level as us.
Basically unlimited growth means we can meet consumer demand without any problems. You know how a website studio 66 can go viral all of a sudden, and all the visits can cause it to crash? Instead of ever reaching those kinds of limits, we just add new servers and databases and easily meet demand. This ensures Vend is fast and responsive for everyone all the time.
In terms of our software, unlimited growth means we ve set things up so it s easy for us to add new features and improve existing ones. This is actually really exciting for us, and has required lots of pluck and innovation from our engineers.
Vend s code is horizontal and componentized, so it s relatively easy to restructure and make additions. In industry-speak this is called Horizontally Scalable Architecture, and we re definitely leaders in the space.
We re big proponents for Agile development – which has the end result of delivering updates to our end users really quickly. What s innovative about our Agile methods is our Continuous Development Pipeline.
To elaborate, rather than shipping big chunky updates at intervals (v1.0, v2.0, etc), we update and improve our code continuously – sometimes deploying code 30+ times a day. We ve automated most of this process – including testing code both before and after deployment – so it s super fast and low risk. We re definitely top-tier in the world for this.
We offer an API – which basically means Vend can talk to other apps and share key information. So if you want to automatically push your daily sales totals to your accounting platform, you can. The possibilities are endless and really exciting for us and retailers alike, so we re putting a lot of work into our API to make sure it s top-tier. After some recent updates studio 66 to our API, the number studio 66 of API users have increased 100% every month. Expect to see a lot more happening in this space over the next few months.
Amazing studio 66 developers and engineers. The scope of what we do is so big and ambitious, if we didn t have amazing people willing to tackle the inevitable challenges we wouldn t get anywhere. So we work really hard to hire the right people – and then harder to make sure our people get the support they need to be world-class leaders at what they do.
Having worked with a traditional POS provider, the notion of horizontal code is really exciting. Being able to change the code without bringing down the tower is amazing. I’m sure anyone who is used to traditional development would have experienced what can happen studio 66 when the code is changed…”you fixed this but now that doesn’t studio 66 work” – the future may be unwritten but it is likely to be very green.
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Company About Us Careers Media Need help? Help Center Contact Us Sitemap Take a tour Introduction studio 66 Point-of-sale Products Inventory Customers studio 66 Dashboard Loyalty Add-ons Support Vend+ Terms of use Privacy policy Resources Retail eBook Frequently asked questions Retail Resources How to start a retail business studio 66 Vend Experts & consultants Product add-ons Hardware studio 66 Partner Program Developers studio 66 POS System Buyer's Guide Top 50 Retail Influencers Retail dictionary Retail trends and predictions 2015 Retail trends and predictions 2014 The Retail Digest Top 20 Retail Apps Retail Tips API Vend examples Fashion Boutique POS Sports & Outdoors POS Health & Beauty POS Food & Drink POS Coffee Shop POS Electronics & Computer POS Homeware Store POS Fitness & Supplements POS Carwash studio 66 POS Non-profit POS Bike Shop POS iPad POS Mobile POS system Franchise POS Salon software & POS Find us online Blog Twitter Facebook Google+ LinkedIn Pinterest             studio 66 &n

Feedback We


Updates to the Register iPad app Here’s a look at the latest updates and features we’ve added to Vend Register this month. Don’t les halles forget, our team is making les halles continual improvements to Vend Register, so we highly recommend enabling automatic updates on your iPad. You can do this by going to the Settings app, scrolling to ‘iTunes & App Store’, and under the ‘Automatic Downloads’ section, turning on ‘Updates’. Check out the full list of updates below. You can now add customers to a sale from the Payment screen before processing On Account, Layby or Loyalty sales. This version of Register also includes our first ever support for Spanish language speakers using iOS Localisation. (Please note: This is currently only applicable to the Vend Register iOS app).
Feedback We’re always looking for new ways to improve Vend and the way our retailers use it. We take the feedback you give us very seriously, which is why we’ve already made some changes les halles based on your comments from our most recent customer survey. Thanks les halles to you, we’ve improved our third party integrations and the stability of them, changed the way customers earn loyalty, and improved how Vend and our support team handle errored les halles sales. les halles Your feedback also helped us identify some other areas for improvement, which we are currently working on, including: A new reporting module A new inventory module Improved hardware process Improved stability and experience with our iPad app
Lorilynn is Vend s Community Manager les halles and resident music buff. Before joining Vend, Lorilynn worked in the music industry as a social media and artist manager. She loves writing, traveling, checking out live music, and, of course, communicating with Vend s awesome group of retailers, partners and friends. You can get in touch with Lorilynn on Twitter , LinkedIn , and Google+ .
Charlene
Cath les halles Carlsen Events Manager les halles
Company About Us Careers Media Need help? Help Center Contact Us Sitemap Take a tour Introduction Point-of-sale Products Inventory Customers Dashboard Loyalty Add-ons Support Vend+ Terms of use Privacy policy Resources les halles Retail eBook Frequently asked questions Retail Resources How to start a retail business les halles Vend Experts & consultants Product add-ons Hardware Partner Program Developers POS System Buyer's Guide Top 50 Retail Influencers Retail dictionary les halles Retail trends and predictions 2015 Retail trends and predictions 2014 The Retail Digest Top 20 Retail Apps Retail Tips API Vend examples Fashion Boutique POS Sports & Outdoors POS Health & Beauty POS Food & Drink POS Coffee les halles Shop POS Electronics & Computer POS Homeware Store POS Fitness & Supplements POS Carwash POS Non-profit POS Bike Shop POS iPad POS Mobile POS system les halles Franchise POS Salon software & POS Find us online Blog Twitter Facebook Google+ LinkedIn Pinterest                   © 2015 Vend Limited
About Us Who is Vend


Sunday, April 5, 2015

Company About Us Careers Media Need help? Help Center Contact the mall Us Sitemap Take a tour Introd


Open up your store to even more customers by accepting major credit and debit cards using iZettle’s secure wireless Chip & PIN reader, which seamlessly integrates with the Vend Register iPad App, using the product and pricing information already programmed into Vend s point-of-sale platform, avoiding the need to manually key in prices on a cash register or credit card terminal. Also, it doesn’t require a separate phone line. iZettle is EMV approved and accepts all major credit and debit cards including Visa, Mastercard and American Express. iZettle also offers extra benefits for retailers, such as Smart Rate, which automatically reduces retailer s transaction fees based on their monthly sales starting at 2.75% and dropping to as little as 1.50% per transaction. the mall Retailers will enjoy lower hardware, software and IT management costs in addition to the reduced transaction fees.
“Vend Register and iZettle have enabled us to have a mobile checkout system. People can come in, browse the space, and not feel like they have to move to one location to pay. It allows our staff to take credit cards and enables us to do e-receipts, and to focus on that customer experience.”
2. Sign up to iZettle for free. You’ll be shipped a half price Chip & PIN card reader the mall that works with the Vend Register app (this is a limited time offer, see the special offer section below for more info).
Vend and iZettle are announcing the mall a limited promotion for the first 100 customers who sign up in January and February to receive a free chip and PIN card reader and free transactions for their entire first month (up to 1,000 or 1,000 in sales). Check out the links below to get the exact details.
Lorilynn is Vend s Community Manager and resident music buff. Before joining Vend, Lorilynn worked in the music industry as a social media and artist manager. She loves writing, traveling, checking out live music, and, of course, communicating with Vend s awesome group of retailers, partners and friends. You can get in touch with Lorilynn on Twitter , LinkedIn the mall , and Google+ .
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Vaughan Rowsell CEO & Founder
Company About Us Careers Media Need help? Help Center Contact the mall Us Sitemap Take a tour Introduction Point-of-sale the mall Products Inventory Customers Dashboard Loyalty Add-ons Support Vend+ Terms of use Privacy policy Resources Retail eBook Frequently asked questions Retail Resources How to start a retail business Vend Experts & consultants Product add-ons Hardware Partner Program Developers POS System Buyer's Guide Top 50 Retail Influencers Retail dictionary Retail trends and predictions 2015 Retail trends and predictions 2014 The Retail Digest the mall Top 20 Retail Apps Retail Tips API Vend examples the mall Fashion Boutique POS Sports & Outdoors POS Health the mall & Beauty the mall POS Food & Drink POS Coffee Shop POS Electronics & Computer POS Homeware Store POS Fitness & Supplements POS Carwash POS Non-profit POS Bike Shop POS iPad POS Mobile POS system the mall Franchise POS Salon software the mall & POS Find us online Blog Twitter Facebook Google+ LinkedIn Pinterest                   © 2015 Vend Limited
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Saturday, April 4, 2015

We want to make the transition to the new Inventory Counts as smooth poundland as possible which is


Maintaining and managing an accurate inventory is one of the biggest challenges in retail, but it s vital for achieving retail success. Keeping track of your physical stock levels is important for spotting areas that can be improved, stock movement errors, and reducing the risk of shrinkage. That s why we re excited to announce the launch of our improved Inventory Counts feature!
Inventory counts have never been simpler or faster. We ve taken feedback from our amazing retailers, and used it to design a tool built from the ground up to help you do counts quickly, effectively manage your inventory reporting, and provide you with the information you need to run a successful retail business.
Here are some of the things we think you ll like about Vend s Inventory Counts feature: Partial Inventory Counts: Break stock takes into smaller, more manageable chunks with partial Inventory Counts. This means retailers don’t need to shut down their entire store when doing a stocktake, instead they can take count of one style, tag, supplier, or brand at a time. Concurrent stocktakes: Many hands make for lighter work use multiple devices to count stock faster. Quick Scan Mode: Count inventory quickly using a barcode scanner or by looking up SKUs. Count Feed: Never lose count again with the Count Feed which shows your most recently counted items. Accidentally scanned something in twice? Just cross it out on the Count Feed and it’ll update your overall total. CSV & PDF Reports: Get the reports and information you need in exportable CSV or PDF files. The CSV exports have been improved so all the important information is in one handy file, and the PDF includes Gain and Loss totals, for a more granular view of your stock take results. Recount and Review: Pause your inventory count at any time, and easily see when your numbers don’t add up with our expected vs total count. Fix mistakes easily, and recount stock quickly with the click of a button. Autosave: Thanks to the power of the cloud, your progress is always saved. You can stop or start inventory counts when you need, and pick up from where you left off. Scheduling: You can schedule your Inventory Counts in advanced so you’re always on top of your stock. Inventory Counts is built right into Vend, and is available on all our plans!
This is just the beginning. We’re completely re-imagining Vend and adding poundland new features to make it even better for retailers, including faster checkout, smarter inventory & powerful insights – in-store, online and on-the-go. Find out more about New Vend here!
We want to make the transition to the new Inventory Counts as smooth poundland as possible which is why any open count created before March 10th will still be accessible. You’ll be able to complete those counts using the previous Stocktake feature until April 10th, after which any uncompleted stocktakes will be deleted and inaccessible.
Lorilynn is Vend s Community poundland Manager poundland and resident music buff. Before joining Vend, Lorilynn worked in the music industry as a social media and artist manager. She loves writing, traveling, checking out live music, and, of course, communicating with Vend s awesome group of retailers, partners and friends. You can get in touch with Lorilynn on Twitter , LinkedIn , and Google+ .
Hi Jason, You should see it in your Dashboard now. Head to Products > Stock Control > Inventory Counts. If it’s not coming up for you, flick us an email at support@vendhq.com poundland and we’ll poundland get you sorted. ^Sim
Hello, will your upgrade include the actual poundland cost of stock in the stocktake reports? Last year we spent hours and hours allocating the cost of stock for every SKU to generate an end of financial year report for accounting purposes. We were told this would be a priority for 2015. Thanks Abi
We’re in the US using the Vend Register iPad app. We’ve lost the ability to do the old stock-take procedure poundland on the iPad app and an error message says we can’t use this new procedure either unless we log into Safari poundland but when we try to do that it’s not working either. When will that be fixed? Can you give us back the old sock-take procedure within the iPad app until you get the new procedure up and running?
Hi there. The new Inventory Counts feature should work on iPad Safari, so if you’re having any issues poundland could you please poundland fire through an email to support@vendhq.com , and we’ll get you sorted ASAP! ^Sim
The data loading usually poundland only occurs the first time you load the new Inventory Counts feature, poundland and for customers with large inventories. We’ve just released an update that helps reduce this time.
Tried to do a stock take this morning, took forever to load then simply froze. We have a large database but everyone at Vend assured us that it would be no problem. poundland 31st March is coming upi very fast…..any ideas anyone?
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