The store serving style with a side of coffee in the heart of country New South Wales
The Rural Trader is a breath of fresh air, bringing new life into a restored 1930s general store in Nevertire, rural New South Wales. The store is carefully curated with an onsite cafe and sells a selection of homewares, gifts, apparel & pantry items, which can also be bought online via their eCommerce site.
Business type:
Cafe + homeware, gifts & apparel
Customer since:
2022
Location:
Nevertire, NSW
The Rural Trader + Lightspeed
As a thriving retail store with an onsite cafe in the heart of a rural community, The Rural Trader needed a sophisticated POS platform with inventory management capabilities, detailed reports and embedded Payments that were reliable even if the Wifi was down.
We sat down with Kat Montgomery, Founder and Owner of The Rural Trader, to talk about their Lightspeed experience.
At a glance
Lightspeed provides the Rural Trader with reliable, easy-to-use POS and Payment platforms for their cafe and retail store.
- Reports and analytics give insights into business performance
- Keep selling even if the wifi goes down
- Streamline inventory management between online and offline stores
- Easy-to-use POS makes it simple to train staff
- Intuitive workflows make it easy to process orders
Business insights
“Amazing.”
As a relatively new business, Kat is acutely aware of the importance of monitoring business data to understand how the store is tracking during the early months of operating.
“I think in the first 12 months of business, you're getting a vibe for what people like, who your ideal customer is, what people's buying behaviours are, all of those things.”
Thanks to Lightspeed’s inbuilt analytics tools, it’s easy for Kat and the team to track their progress, monitor sales, understand what’s working and check their margins.
“The analytics are so amazing. Actually looking at margins and looking at where we're doing things well, where we're not doing things so well.”
Keep selling even when offline
“The most incredible thing.”
The Rural Trader store is just that - rural. Unfortunately, with remote locations, the wifi and connectivity aren’t always reliable 100% of the time.
“We are located in a very remote area, and our service here is always going in and out,” comments Kat.
A lack of internet service can spell disaster for a business. However, Lightspeed’s ability to work offline means the store can keep on selling, even if the wifi is down.
“If something happens to the satellite or the phone goes off, and the booster doesn't work… the biggest thing that has saved us is that we can basically still process payments manually through the POS machine with Lightspeed Payments that will then reconcile once we come back online.”
“So that for us has been life-changing because when every other business in the area [is down], even when we have no power, we can still make it work.”
Streamline inventory management
“An absolute game changer.”
inventory management process so much easier - saving time and ensuring accuracy.
“For our inventory numbers, it's really great because it integrates. When someone buys a dress or a relish or a bag of coffee or whatever it is on our online website, our inventory is updated on our Lightspeed in-store.”
“It's completely streamlined. So it doesn't matter if there's someone on the floor or if there's someone on the online store, it does not matter. It all links up.”
“Not having to worry as much about the stocktake side of things because that is all integrated is really helpful.”
Easy to train staff
“So simple.”
The Rural Trader often hire seasonal staff, who work between three to six months at the store before moving on.
“One of our biggest issues that we have is that we are constantly getting new staff. So we need to be constantly training them and making sure that they're up to speed with the point of sale, customer service and everything else.”
One of the great things about Lightspeed is how quick and easy it is to train staff on, so they can get selling as quickly as possible.
“The Lightspeed POS set-up, in regards to ease of use for our staff, has been exceptional. It's just so simple to use because everything has a sequence; everything has a flow.”
“It's so quick, it's so easy. I know that my staff just honestly say you could teach a guinea pig how to use it. So, yeah, we find it excellent.”
Ordering made easy
“It seriously is so easy.”
As a busy combined retail store and cafe, processing orders to serve customers quickly is imperative.
When it comes to complicated cafe orders, it’s easy to add multiple order variants within Lightspeed to ensure accurate orders every time.
“In the cafe, it's so fantastic that we can have all the different variants. So if someone wants a large cup of coffee with oat milk, sweetener, and caramel syrup, and they're lactose intolerant and want a splash of lactose-free milk. We can put all those things in Lightspeed very quickly. And on the docket printer, having everything really, really clear.”
Quickly process takeaway orders
“Really helpful.”
Kat loves how Lightspeed easily allows the team to differentiate between dine-in and takeaway orders so they can serve cafe customers as quickly as possible.
“We're on a very busy highway. So we have a lot of phone orders… it's so great because when we get someone on the phone, we go bang bang bang bang bang, send that order, and then it'll print out the docket.”
“We can make it for them, they come in-store, and they pay. We literally just press the button, and they just pay for it, and they go. So I think having that takeaway versus dine-in option is really helpful.”
