Paladin Point of Sale is a powerful, mobile-ready POS system designed to simplify operations and help independent retailers sell from anywhere. With built-in online store capabilities, integrated EDI, and 24/7 U.S.-based support, Paladin empowers businesses across industries like retail, pharmacy, and lumber to run more efficiently and grow with confidence.
In this episode, we speak with Paul Butcher, the Director of Business Development at Paladin Data Corporation. The discussion centers on the challenges and opportunities for independent retailers, particularly hardware stores, in the evolving landscape of e-commerce and technology. We explore how technological advancements, such as AI and mobile solutions, are reshaping consumer behavior and retail strategies. Paul shares insights on the importance of integrating technology into retail operations, emphasizing the need for independent retailers to adopt e-commerce and mobile solutions to remain competitive. The conversation also highlights Paladin’s approach to providing cost-effective e-commerce solutions and the significance of collaboration within the industry to ensure long-term success.
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Show Notes
Takeaways
- Independent retailers face a critical tech adoption moment.
- Mobile and AI have reshaped how shoppers begin buying.
- Amazon is strong, but AI opens new paths to compete.
- Google Business Profile is a key first digital step.
- AI visibility depends on rich data and strong citations.
- E-commerce is now mandatory, not optional, for growth.
- Traditional e-commerce costs make ROI hard for small stores.
- POS-native e-commerce lowers cost and complexity.
- Mobile tools help staff serve customers in the aisle.
- Inventory visibility is essential online and in store.
- A small drop in traffic can threaten store viability.
- Independent retailers need collaboration, not isolation.
- Technology is now table stakes for survival and growth.
- Customer support and onboarding matter for adoption.
Chapters
00:01 – Intro: retail pressure and digital opportunity
01:53 – Paul’s background and Paladin’s origin story
06:28 – Why tech adoption now matters for retailers
07:06 – Mobile, Amazon, and AI reshape shopping
08:52 – Is Amazon vulnerable in the AI era?
13:09 – First steps for independent retailers to compete
14:44 – Google Business Profile and inventory visibility
16:52 – AI citations and treating AI as an audience
20:18 – Why e-commerce feels costly and overwhelming
20:58 – What “doing e-commerce right” really means
22:34 – Paladin Shop and lower-risk online selling
24:38 – Why POS-native e-commerce integration matters
28:39 – Mobile strategy and in-aisle customer service
30:26 – Paladin Go and mobile retail workflows
33:12 – Wake-up call: tech is no longer optional
34:07 – Two calls to action: tech and mindset
36:13 – How small traffic losses can close stores
37:29 – Collaboration across retailers and suppliers
40:37 – Customer support, onboarding, and NPS focus
43:29 – Where to learn more about Paladin
Transcript
Beau Hamilton (00:01.009)
Hello everyone and welcome to the SourceForge Podcast. I’m your host, Beau Hamilton. Today’s conversation will focus in on the opportunities available to independent retailers, particularly hardware stores as they navigate the rapidly changing technological landscape of ecommerce. Now, as many of you are probably aware, independent stores are operating in one of the most competitive retail environments we’ve seen in decades really. A lot of that has to do with the shifting of customer expectations that have, you know, changed over the years, shoppers assume they can check inventory online, they can compare prices, you know, instantly, they can order pickup, or walk into a store and have staff access information in real time immediately. And at the same time, Amazon and national chains continue investing heavily in logistics, digital infrastructure and data, you might have heard this this new technology called AI, that’s just an extension of all of those investments.
And there’s also a consolidation of suppliers that is changing the dynamics of distribution. And in some markets, the number of independent stores is shrinking, you know, it’s no secret. I think we’ve all seen sort of at least some of the brick and mortar closures firsthand in our local cities and towns. So the big question really becomes, is this simply a survival era for independent retailers, or is it actually a moment of opportunity? And so I want you to think of that question when I talk to our guest of the show today, Paul Butcher. Paul is the director of business development for Paladin Data Corporation, which has worked with independent retailers for more than four decades, focusing in on point of sale systems, inventory management and integrated retail technology. And so that gives Paul a really unique perspective on how these changes are playing out in real stores and not just in theory, you know, so without further ado, let me bring in Paul and we can get right into it. Paul, welcome to the podcast. Glad you could join us.
Paul Butcher (01:50.734)
Thanks so much, I appreciate the opportunity.
Beau Hamilton (01:53.393)
Absolutely. So Paul, for listeners who might not be familiar with you and your company, can you just start by telling us a little bit about yourself and what Paladin data is all about?
Paul Butcher (02:03.533)
Yeah, I’ll say that I’m pretty new to Paladin. Prior to this stint, I was in the technology industry with large technology company for 30 years and had the benefit of working in the retail segment at that company. So worked with the top 100 retailers around the world in advancing new technologies into their data centers and also the store floor. And so that was really exciting and cool.
Was a casualty of one of the big layoffs that is common in that space. And so after 30 years, I had a little bit of time to sit back and think about what I was going to do next and I stumbled across this company called Paladin Data and I’ve been here for the last, not quite two years now. And it’s a point of sale company originally, although our portfolio is expanding and we have mobile solutions, we have managed services solutions, we also have ecommerce solutions now for stores. Our primary focus is on hardware and lumber, but we also have a strong offering and capability to serve the pharmacy space, independent pharmacies around the country.
And our founder, Dan Naismith, he started the company 46 plus years ago, he had a background in lumber and then that, you know, of course led into the hardware space. And, you know, as a self-taught developer and built the company up by traveling around in a car initially, he and his wife, visiting hardware stores and literally selling it on site and then installing it and then driving to the next store. Later on, they became pilots because the territory got bigger and they began flying. So we have, I don’t know if you noticed the logo up here. We’ve got a plane in our logo and it’s part of our culture and heritage that we like to support customers in typically, you know, the historic, this historical aspect there is, is that we would fly and support customers.
Beau Hamilton (04:44.497)
It’s, I would suggest listeners, if you go to their website and go to the about section, there’s a pretty neat like timeline of events that provide some background on the company over the last, you know, four plus decades. It’s really interesting. And, you know, what stood out to me, obviously the aviation side of things and how that ties into the company, but you’re also a, you know, oregonians founded by oregonians, Oregon native company, which I don’t know if listeners know, but I’m based in Portland. So I have a little sweet spot for, for local companies. You guys are now headquartered in Arizona, but you have two kind of branches. And, so I love that side of the business as well. And, but yeah, I think the, thanks for providing your background as well. I’m sure the team at Paladins really appreciated to have in you guys having you on the team.
And that’s where I really want to get into. So like, I’m curious when you, at a high level, when you look at retail today, especially in the hardware space, like where are we in terms of technological adoption, let’s say? Like what’s changed over the past, I don’t know, let’s say five to 10 years that like independent retailers really need to understand?
Paul Butcher (07:05.314)
Well, you know, Amazon really drove the adoption of mobile and that was, you know, prior to that was online through browsers and whatnot. But the biggest tectonic change, I think in this space that has really impacted independent hardware stores and retail across the board. I mean, any independent retailer is the mobile app, the Amazon mobile app. And that has changed consumer behaviors dramatically to the point where you can almost say every single transaction is starting digitally, whether it’s on some type of browser or mobile app.
Now, what is interesting as we look at what’s happening in just the recent 12 months is dramatic adoption of AI. And what I mean by that is that consumer behavior is beginning to embrace the query and asking AI questions iteratively about the products that they’re interested in, you know, the shopping journey, it really is about the product. It starts with the product. They’re interested in a product and they’re asking AI about that product. And that is becoming, I might say a little bit less favorable for the tech giants like Amazon. We know AI search is growing. We know this query based kind of concept in consumer behavior is growing. And so that is dramatic. It is a huge change. And I think an opportunity that we all need to be looking at.
Beau Hamilton (08:52.121)
Yeah. I mean, when you think of, when you start talking about the space, you know, the elephant in the room is of course, Amazon. I mean, that’s where my mind goes. They, Amazon’s sort of been dominating retail for a number of years now. and every time I see brick and mortar store closed, I can’t help but think it’s a casualty of Amazon, you know, and what they’re, they’ve been doing. But nowadays some people even question, and like you were saying, like how well positioned, some of the traditional ecommerce giants are like Amazon. They’re kind of forced to, you know, really innovate with this AI era. They have to invest and stay competitive. Otherwise they’re going to slip to maybe some of the newcomers. I mean, OpenAI is integrating shopping into their platform natively. Google is obviously doing it. I mean, everyone’s, you know, incorporating it in some way, or form. Amazon, I think was actually one of the most recent corporations to really make a really big investment in AI kind of later than some of the others.
So I’m curious, like from your perspective, is Amazon actually in trouble? I mean, they seem more suited for success than, you know, some of the other big ecommerce companies out there, but, or is the story a little bit more nuanced than that?
Paul Butcher (10:09.24)
Yeah, it is. They’re cash rich. They’ve spent billions capturing the audience, the consumer audience, and they have virtually the mobile app in everybody’s pocket out there. So they’ve spent billions on capturing the eyeballs of every consumer out there, at least in the US, I should say.
And, you know, most research shows that I think it’s over 50% of shopping journeys start on the Amazon platform, whether it’s, you know, browser based or the mobile app. So it’s safe to say they’re investing. And as you mentioned, you know, I think that the thing I saw was they were looking at investing in AI. And maybe you saw that they had actually done, I don’t know if it was which platform, but they’re going to invest if they haven’t, and they’re going to invest in a big way. But it’s not their platform, and it’s still a pretty democratic system out there, if you look at AI. Who knows if that will change? I don’t know. But it’s safe to say that they not in trouble, certainly. But I think there is a change in the dynamics of open and opportunity for independent retailers. Yeah.
Beau Hamilton (11:39.867)
Yeah, no, that’s interesting to see how it unfolds and all this sort of the new players, the newcomers, and then also some of the established players like Google really start to finally, like not say finally, but just to start to really incorporate and lean heavily into this AI, these AI features that I would say OpenAI kind of really championed and kind of got some of these like legacy players to really start innovating and not remaining so kind of stagnant and conservative in a way with their, you know, rollout of new features and whatnot. I believe it’s so Amazon has a large $8 billion investment in Anthropic. And I believe the recent investment was also an Anthropic, but it could have been related to some of the other areas of their company but…
So I’m curious, like consumers today, they often begin their buying journey online, like you mentioned, even if they ultimately purchase in store. Does that mean independent retailers are maybe powerless to intercept those digital shopping journeys? Or are there like realistic ways they can sort of compete and stay visible and stay relevant?
Paul Butcher (13:09.902)
Yeah, there’s some opportunities out there for sure and I’m not the only one to say this. I think there’s a number of analysts out there and, you know, leaders in the retail space who are as I read through the journals and whatnot that are pointing to this opportunity with AI. So it is possible for independent retailers to intercept AI queries but they’ve got to take advantage, you know, they actually have to do something about it. There’s some tactics, there’s some time and energy that is required. There’s some, you know, a need to understand the platforms and solutions that are available to independent retailers. So that’s the opportunity.
Beau Hamilton (14:00.859)
So if, if one of those retailers owners, let’s say, are listening right now, maybe they feel behind. I’m curious, like, what’s the first step? Like, where would you even begin? Like to what, what first steps would you take to really start, becoming more competitive and relevant on this front? Cause it seems like it’s so overwhelming with some of this, these technological changes. I think on one hand, it’s, it, you know, things are moving so fast. It can be overwhelming. But on the other, I think there’s also kind of, there’s more companies that are like maybe like Paladin that are helping retailers get set up and running. And so there’s more resources in a way. So where would you, where would you start?
Paul Butcher (14:44.77)
Well, I want to apply Google, basically. Retailers should take advantage of Google Business Profile. That’s the first thing to do. Get your address and your business profile and whatnot loaded up there. But second, you need to make sure that your point of sale system is integrated with Google Business Profile so that you can expose your inventory to consumers who are looking for products locally. Top tier POS vendors like Paladin have integrations. Used to be called Pointy, I think it was. Now it’s just Google Business Profile. And so what happens when you do that is Google uses a feature I think it’s called “See what’s in the store” or something like that. And that enables folks who are using Google and, you know, for searches as well as through AI, because AI is using that business profiles as well to display the products that you have in your store into the shopper search. And so it comes right up.
So if you’re looking for a snow shovel, a drill, a hammer locally, and you need it today, and you’re using AI or Google as a consumer, there’s a good chance, not in every scenario, it kind of depends on where the consumer is starting, but that is going to point to your store locally. And it can show, if you have the integration, can show the item. It can show you certainly your store and location, the price, the fact that you’ve got quantity and stock right into incorporating it into the search that the customer is using and hopefully lead them to your store.
Beau Hamilton (16:52.069)
Yeah, that’s some good advice. So Google Business Profile is a good place to start and so much of the discussion for getting your name out there is search engine optimization. I mean, that’s been the case for years, trying to get your presence known online and have the right keywords and whatnot. And now with AI, shifting. The whole interface of the web is shifting. And so you have this new term, generative engine optimization, which it sounds like by setting up a Google Business Profile, you’re more likely to be incorporated into some of these AI search results, generative engine search results, so that you can get your brand and your products out there. Because it’s still like a, it’s a growing evolving field. And like, we know that shopping is such a big, you know, category for Google, Google Search. And so it’s, they’re obviously trying to find ways to incorporate that into Google’s AI search engine, AI mode, right?
Paul Butcher (17:54.766)
Yeah, I would nuance that a little bit and say what you’re really looking for in citations. I don’t know that we’re influencing the AI logic as much as we are informing those engines by providing a richer data sets that the little AI bots are crawling around and looking for information. So you need to make sure that the information about your store is available for those bots so that when a consumer is searching for something that it intelligently knows that you have that item. And so that whole concept I think is being called citations, AI citations.
And, you know, I think it’s something from a marketing perspective I’ll share that I am now thinking of AI as an audience. So not only does a store need to think of AI as an audience, you know, software vendors like Paladin need to think about AI as an audience for any decision maker, anybody who’s looking at procuring, whether it’s consumer good or a business related product.
Beau Hamilton (19:13.947)
Yeah, that’s an interesting way to phrase it. I’ve never heard that phrasing before, but I think that’s true. You have to kind of think of the scrapers, you know, the bots, the grunts that are going out there and actually sourcing information.
Now, okay, so we’ve talked a little bit about this, but I wanna, you know, call it out specifically, you know, lot of independence, independent retailers hear “ecommerce”, and just think it’s sort of expensive, it’s overwhelming with all the changes going on and just sort of that digital divide. It’s a new sort of medium for a lot of these traditional like brick and mortar hardware retailers, let’s say there’s a, there’s a learning curve associated with it, given the technology and again, the digital divide. So how should small hardware retailers or just retailers of other industries as well. How should they think about ecommerce today? What does like doing it right actually look like for them?
Paul Butcher (20:18.488)
Well, this is kind of a multifaceted discussion around ecommerce. Yes, it’s mandatory. Yes, if you have ecommerce, you will increase revenue, foot traffic, but it depends on how much you enable it. You can’t just build it and they will come. You actually have to promote it with your customers, you have to enable it with your Google Business Profile and whatnot. So there’s a lot of work that needs to be done no matter what. And the first year, second year, third year revenue streams are going to be pretty frustrating. So you’d be lucky if you got five or seven percent of your revenue online. Ace recently released their financials and I think they said something close, it wasn’t quite 14 percent of revenue. Last year, I believe Ace was just shy of 10 percent of revenue. So there’s growth there.
But let’s assume you get five or seven percent of revenue, of your revenue from ecommerce and that a typical custom ecommerce system is going to be north of 75,000. We’ve talked to folks who pay 150 or better for ecommerce system. Well, five or 10 percent on half a million, a million dollars in revenue, is not a lot of money. Your return on investment on a 75,000 investment in ecommerce that accurately represents the 10, 20, 30,000 items you have in your store. It has all the features, the bells and whistles that you want in your ecommerce system. That’s a pretty tough ROI to justify.
And in fact, Paladin, we realized that this was a problem. And so we developed a product called Paladin Shop. And we just decided that for this industry to succeed, really what we needed was a solution, ecommerce solution that had no upfront costs, no maintenance costs. And so we built Paladin Shop and it allows, in fact, I should say every single one of our customers we’re enabling it for at no cost, no upfront costs, I should say.
We do have a reoccurring, so an incremental sales through the site. We do have a percentage of sales that we do charge. It’s a single digit number. But if you don’t sell anything, there’s no cost. And so it’s a way of starting to explore ecommerce and be available for the digital shopper and for your B2B customers as well without any upfront costs, any maintenance costs as well. So that’s the Paladin Shop direction that we’ve taken on in order to enable ecommerce. And given the realities, you know, just starting the plane is so expensive in this space.
Beau Hamilton (23:42.809)
It is and it sounds like you really, you can’t expect immediate adoption or quick even quick adoption overnight, but you do have to start somewhere, right? And then ideally complementing the physical store, allowing kind of the two sort of storefronts to like coexist and tie into each other, I think is important, especially to get, you know, shoppers and customers from one place to another.
And then, I like what you mentioned with Paladin Shop and how you, it’s, there’s not really an upfront cost, right? You have to actually like sell, make sales in order to, you know, before you’re ever, incur any costs. Now I remember you mentioned Paladin Shop and you also mentioned earlier, when we were, we were talking about how it’s native to Paladin POS, for listeners who aren’t, technical, let’s say, what does native really mean? Like, why does that integration really matter?
Paul Butcher (24:44.204)
The simplest way of saying is built right into our POS system. So it’s an ecommerce platform that is literally built inside of our POS software. And so you compare that to typical ecommerce, the approach across the industry has been you build it on a separate platform. The ecommerce engine is built on a separate platform. And that is integrated with the POS system so that that separate system can accurately collect online the number, the quantity that you have in inventory, the sales price and whatnot. If you have B2B pricing for contractors, for example, in your POS system, that separate platform needs to tie into that so that that can be represented. All of that represents a huge amount of cost. And that’s why it’s so expensive to build and maintain these platforms because they’re separate.
And so with Paladin Shop, the ecommerce site is literally managed from within a tab within our POS system. The code is within our POS system. And therefore, all of the tables that we have for your items, the descriptions, the sales price that you have for that, any discounts you have for B2B customers like contractors and whatnot is all passed along to the ecommerce site so that when the shopper logs in, all of your negotiated pricing or any coupons or benefits that you have for that that’s loaded into our POS system is live on the ecommerce experience.
Beau Hamilton (26:44.783)
Yeah, I was just going to say, I mean, that’s having integrated all in one approach is, is helpful not only for, from a cost standpoint, but also from a learning curve standpoint, I just, anything that like, if I’m using an editing software or I don’t know, like whatever, like, accounting software, like having the tools and features on one app is much, just much more handy and useful than me having to go hunt for other tools and integrations. So from just that practical standpoint, I can see the benefits there. And I’m, I will say like from a business standpoint, from a retail standpoint, you don’t have to have like a big IT team to manage a bunch of different systems, right? So that saves you sort of a headache as well as obviously some, some money.
Paul Butcher (27:30.466)
Yeah, I mean that’s, for a small independent that might have, you know, wife and husband, maybe the kids working, they can’t afford an IT crew to to manage the system now for larger hardware stores. Certainly they are developing and have technical competence on staff or they’re sourcing that elsewhere. But it’s really not sustainable moving forward. I really, you know, I hope that the other competitors out there, the POS vendors like Paladin are going to develop similar approaches. You this is not, you can’t patent this. It just software. It’s just an approach. But I do think that it is, I think it’s a hope for our industry is that POS Native e-commerce is a way of democratizing technology so that it becomes more affordable for the base, if you will.
Beau Hamilton (28:39.057)
Absolutely. I want to talk a little bit about the mobile space because we talked a lot about the desktop ecommerce, but mobile has really become central, I would say, to how customers research products and ultimately pull the trigger and order them. I’ve actually been hearing a lot about this sort of new live shopping trend on TikTok where sellers are pitching products in real time. That’s just one example, though. And there’s, of course, a bunch of other, you know, examples was there’s mo there’s mobile optimized sites that are, you know, almost the standard now. I mean, if you don’t have a mobile optimized site, you’re really living in the past it seems like. But what’s happening on the, the mobile solutions front? I’m curious, like what, how is that side of things developing and how should independent hardware retailers be thinking about mobile as part of their overall strategy?
Paul Butcher (29:32.568)
So if the first step of the shopping journey is asking about product with your mobile app as a consumer or online, that mobile phone follows the customer into the store in the aisle, and they have that mobile device in their hand as they’re looking at the product. And they don’t need to have that. And oftentimes they’re making decisions based on, I can get this over there. There’s a different assortment over here that I want something a little bit different. So it represents a risk.
And so the focus that I think is important is in aisle solutions. And the first and foremost one is equipping your associates who are on the floor with information about the products that you have in stock, about the items that are coming into stock that might be on the truck coming, or determining if they’re available at your supplier. Any information like specs or short descriptions, excuse me, rich descriptions. All of that information can be available in a mobile app to help assist the customer. Likewise, the in-store operating things like cycle counting, going to a segment of the store and accounting, you know, a four foot section or whatnot and assigning those tasks out. That’s very key. The transaction, you know, ringing a customer up is, I mean, it’s nice, but it’s probably not the big play there.
So we recently launched a product called Paladin Go. It’s tethered intimately to and part of Paladin POS. And it supports all of these capabilities, the ability to support the customer and answer their questions in the aisle, the ability to perform regular routines in the store like updating inventory and printing bin tags, things like that, as well as bringing customers up. All whether it’s in the aisle, in the lumber yard, garden center, mobile, if folks are at a show, for example, the ability to look up qualities and what, there’s tons of usage models out there for mobile. And probably the next frontier on this and there, I will mention a company called FastQuery that had a chance to run across. They are kind of leading the whole concept of AI assisted tasks in the space. So I find them to be very interesting. So…
Beau Hamilton (32:41.775)
Interesting. Yeah, I’ll have to research that company. I think that’s, that’s nice to hear that you’re, you know, placing a strong emphasis on this mobile front. I mean, I feel like, you know, you have to, and there’s, so much opportunity for growth for retailers who haven’t, you know, already adopted this, but it sounds like Paladin Go is a good sort of, resource to go to, to start kind of learning more, incorporating this, mobile first sort of technology. And then also there’s the information you offer about educating your associates with the right information and, kind of supply inventory, you know, data and all that.
I want to look at the bigger sort of picture for the industry overall and kind of circle back around with some of these, you know, the large investments we talked about earlier with Amazon. So, you know, Amazon’s obviously investing a lot in like AI, for example, and then big box retailers are reshaping some of the supply relationships they’re having and even reducing the number of independent stores. Is this a true wake up call moment for independent industry or hardware industry, let’s say? And if so, what needs to change now to ensure that they’re still positioned to not only survive but thrive five or 10 years from now?
Paul Butcher (34:07.086)
Yeah, I like that wake up call concept. I think there’s probably two called actions on this. Well, I’ll just say there’s two called actions. There’s probably more than that. You know, I gotta be careful of limiting that. There’s a lot of things to be done, but the things that come to mind for me have to do one with technology is mandatory and the second one is a mindset around independent stores, independent hardware stores, if you will.
So on the technology front, we have passed the point where technology is an option, it’s mandatory, it’s table stakes, you know, stores should have a truly industry enabled POS system. They need ecommerce, they need mobile solutions, they need AI solutions. The point I wanna make is, yeah, there are thousands and thousands of hardware stores out there that have said no to point of sale and technology. Yeah, we’ve done it this way for 50 years and we’re doing fine. And I totally respect that, you know, that was the way my dad was. We’ll do it this way and we’ve done it this way forever and it’s worked and I don’t wanna change. But the reality is that segment of the market is disappearing. It used to be prevalent. Now it’s, you know, a much smaller segment. And that is where the tech giants are focusing. And we’re seeing shrinkage in that space. We’re seeing stores just, you know, close the doors and go out of business. There’s not a viable enough business there for them to turn around and sell it to somebody and leave something as an inheritance for their kids. And that’s really frustrating.
And so Amazon doesn’t have to get all your business to drive you to close your doors. It’s just a percentage. if they can, if one UPS truck is driving by initially a week at delivering Amazon goods to somebody in your community that grows to two Amazon trucks a week, two Amazon trucks a day, whether it’s Amazon truck or UPS truck. They’re just chipping away a little bit at a time. And at some point, that becomes impossible for the store to continue operations. And you only need a decrease in 5-10% of your foot traffic and revenue to make it untenable. And so we’re looking for protecting those edges and making sure that the volume of foot traffic keeps up and we’ve got a chance there.
And it leads to the second point, or called action, which has to do with mindset. And there is a, and I’ve, you know, as I’ve, I grew up in this space and certainly I took a hiatus for a number of years in technology. But, you know, as I come back to it and I meet the wonderful people in this space that shows and talk with them on the phone and whatnot, there’s this independent mindset that we do it all by ourselves. And that is not how Amazon or the big box stores or the larger chains like ACE are succeeding. They’re doing it by collaborating and sharing information and data. And so what we need to realize is that the only way for independents to be successful, I think, is for them to work in collaboration with their suppliers and enable the exchange of information on what’s happening on the forefront of the market, where consumers who are coming in. What’s happening in terms of stagnant inventory, what’s happening in terms of what’s turning, what price points are able to drive volume versus the price points that are not. This has to be a collaboration with suppliers. And I think to a certain extent, there’s a conversation, a collaboration with the manufacturers and brands as well.
And that really touches on a much larger topic. We don’t really have time today to talk about, but it is a for this industry to succeed. I need to really think about the industry as a whole. So the stores, the software vendors like Paladin, our competitors, the suppliers, the brands, we all have to think about this industry as a whole and how we’re going to make sure that it succeeds and that has to do with collaboration.
Beau Hamilton (39:23.589)
Very well said. Yeah. I think there’s a lot of points you could make to hammer home, but I think, you know, underscoring the importance of adopting technology, starting, you know, you got to start somewhere. You can’t just stay complicit. And then also the mindset, right? Collaborate. I think that’s something that I know I struggle with personally with, you know, trying to tackle all the problems I have to work on, all the things I have to do.
But you’re absolutely right. I mean, for any successful business, I feel like you have to have competent people involved and partnerships and collaboration is a huge component to that. don’t go at it all alone. Find the right resources. I think having Paladin, your resources and your tools to utilize are important.
And then I’m curious also, do you guys have, what’s your customer support system like? Like, do you, I imagine you meet with, with retailers and kind of walk them through a lot of people you talked about here today and kind of help them weigh their options and get in contact with good resources to help them kind of get on their feet in the tech space?
Paul Butcher (40:37.006)
Yeah. A couple of things to call out about talent and maybe then point out on the customer support front. Our customer support is free. Half of our employees are in customer support and I don’t know if you heard Net Per Meter score, is a concept where you ask on a scale of one to 10 after an engagement, how was that experience? And good NPS scores are typically in the realm of three to five, I think. We consistently are at nine and in our net promoter scores after.
So after a support exchange, we send out a question and it comes, you know, we’re asked to be rated and provide some notes on that. And we’re just shy of nine right now. We’ve been there for years on the NPS space, you know? From an onboarding perspective, what’s included is project management. We have a team of folks that are there with the retailers for the onboarding process. We have a data team that takes all of the information. We work with all of the suppliers and have their catalogs and are able to set up the catalog on your POS system. I should also mention that from a Paladin Shop perspective, we have endless aisles. Not only do we have access and enable you to sell the items in your store through your POS system and ecommerce system, but also all the items in your supplier’s warehouse. So that’s pretty phenomenal.
Beau Hamilton (42:16.443)
Yeah. I love, I like ask, I like to ask the customer support question a lot because, you know, it’s, such an important, it’s such an important thing. I think a lot of maybe listeners, some listeners will like roll their eyes and like, customer support. you know, cause all the bad experiences typically we’ve had, people have had with various customer support representatives and whatnot. But I think in today’s like automated AI era, having really capable, like human, humans to talk to and get resources from and get support, think is really valuable. So it’s something I always like to ask. And it sounds like you guys are on top of it. Having that high score in the customer satisfaction, I think is really important. And especially with getting into the complexity of some of these online storefront tools, I think that you absolutely need to have a strong customer support team to help a lot of these retailers. So I’m glad you guys are on top of it.
For those interested in learning more about Paladin Data and how you’re helping independent retailers, where’s the best place to visit? And then maybe who’s the best person to contact?
Paul Butcher (43:29.614)
Well, if you go up to our website, PaladinPOS.com, you can find everything you need to know about us there. We’ve got our phone numbers up there. So you can call and get in touch with the sales department. Our support numbers are there for existing clients. They reach out. So that’s the best way if you’re kind of interested. And we’ve got a team of folks waiting to talk with you.
Beau Hamilton (44:02.747)
Perfect. And then do you have a preferred contact in case people want to get in touch with you and learn more about Paladin?
Paul Butcher (44:12.226)
Yeah. So, PaulB@PaladinPOS.com and, I get a lot of email, but I try to get through them. So my apologies to anybody who reaches out and I might, you know, if I’m slow, I do travel and whatnot, but I am more than happy to hear from anybody who wants to reach out. I’d love to hear from folks.
Beau Hamilton (44:40.804)
Fantastic. Awesome. Well, PaladinPOS.com is a good resource. And Paul, thank you just for all these insights in this conversation. I think a lot of independent retailers listening and those just in the ecommerce space. I think they’re going to walk away from this conversation having learned a lot. So thanks for joining us and sharing all that you did.
Paul Butcher (45:04.738)
Beau, thank you so much for the time.
Beau Hamilton (45:07.313)
Absolutely. Thank you all for listening to the SourceForge Podcast. I’m your host, Beau Hamilton. Make sure to subscribe to stay up to date with all of our upcoming B2B software related podcasts. I will talk to you in the next one.