J2 Retail SystemsA leading specialist manufacturer of integrated PC-based touchscreen terminals, LCD touchscreen monitors and point-of-sale hardware to the retail, hospitality and leisure industries. By controlling our own design and manufacture, we have built a reputation for innovation, reliability and cost-effectiveness. Credited with introducing ‘thin client’ EPoS to the market, we use emergent technologies wherever possible and also utilize our close working relationship with the chipset manufacturers to ensure the reliability and longevity of our products.
J2 is a UK-based group specializing in the manufacture of PC-based touchscreens, LCD touchscreen monitors and point-of-sale hardware to the retail, hospitality and leisure industries. The company was formed in 2002 when a group of directors led a management buy-out from a US company, bringing together J2 Retail Systems and Jade Communications. Some 3 years later, Jade was sold, leaving J2 with a thriving business designing and manufacturing touchscreen computers.
Now with an installed base in excess of 50,000 units, we have become the EPoS hardware of choice for sector leaders and growing businesses looking for unbeatable cost of ownership, a wide product range, innovation and exceptional reliability. Our users range from bakers to cinemas, and wine merchants to nightclubs. With our own in-house Design Engineers, we build to our own specifications and can customize product to client needs and environments. This includes wired or wireless operation, thin or thick client, stand-alone or networked operation. Optional swipe for payment cards and operator ID checking via card swipe or biometric fingerprint recognition are available. We support both resistive and infra-red touchscreen technology.
To keep hardware ownership costs under control, we use emergent technologies. Also, rather than oblige you to take fixed fee maintenance, we offer incident-based maintenance and our trademark 3-year parts & labor warranty. We build certain products to an ultra-compact till footprint and offer flexible mounting. Our latest models, the J2 650 and the J2 580, have all the technology built into the ‘head’ of the unit and come with a universal VESA mount as standard. This offers stand-, pole-, wall- and kiosk-mounting.
Where silent operation is desirable, we can provide fan-less models with or without a disk drive. As our hardware is often purchased with interfaced, point-of-sale applications and system support, we work closely with specialist retail and hospitality integrators and software houses to deliver a complete solution. From our headquarters in NW England, we manage product sales throughout the UK, Continental Europe and the Middle East. Our subsidiary operation, J2 Retail Systems Inc., based in California, covers the USA, Canada and South American markets. Our products are manufactured in the Far East under license and to our unique specification.
J2 Retail System ProductsWe have an outstanding range of PC-based touchscreen technology that adapts to meet the needs of the most demanding point-of-sale and point-of-service environments. Installed across the spectrum of retail trades and in countless leisure and hospitality businesses, we combine innovation, flexibility and exceptional reliability. Together, these elements make for client peace of mind and an unbeatable cost of ownership.
J2 650The J2 650 has been designed to be the most versatile and high performance integrated Point of Sale computer available to date. The 650 can be configured as a low power fan-less thin client terminal, a midrange thick client or even a Dual Core high speed server with RAID. Product versatility and reliability are the J2 650 systems key strengths.
The J2 650 Integrated Touch screen computer is an “all in the head” design that fills the role of a counter top or wall/pole mounted computer in the same unit. Both the counter top base and VESA/ wall mount brackets come standard with the J2 650.
There are many processor variants available for the J2 650. The standard J2 650 comes with an Intel 1.6 GHz Celeron 420 Conroe Core processor. The processor uses the Intel LGA775 socket and can be upgraded or ordered with a wide range of single or dual core processor. The J2 650 has a very unique feature when using the 420 processor called “Green Mode”. This mode is set by a simple BIOS setup item. When in “Green Mode” the processor speed is reduced to 1GHz and fans are turned off. This in effect turns the J2 650 into a fan-less system for thin client uses. It also reduces the J2 650 power consumption by 25% reducing the J2 650 carbon foot print which is already very small.
Accessibility is the key to machine maintenance or upgradeability. Upgrades to the memory modules can be easily undertaken by removing only two screws on the back cover. A complete motherboard upgrade can be carried out in less than 2 minutes. The two quick change hard disk drives are easily accessible housed on a slide in drive bay that allows the drives to be hot swappable. The footprint of the J2 650 is particularly compact making it ideal for the space conscious retailer.
The J2 650 thick or thin or server configurations support the standard Microsoft operating systems Vista, XP, WePOS, CE.NET and XPe, further demonstrating its versatility. The J2 650 is equally proficient with the many flavors of Linux.
J2 580The 580 is J2’s latest and most powerful PC-based touchscreen. It comes with three processor options: Celeron ULV 1.0GHz, Celeron M 1.5GHz and Pentium M 1.8GHz. The 1.0GHz model offers silent operation and the other models are whisper-quiet.
It incorporates many of the features, such as flexible mounting, 95degree screen tilt and support for multiple operating modes that have made the J2 560 the system of choice for scores of retailers and hospitality operators.
The 1.0GHz model has a fanless construction and uses a Compact Flash card, which add up to increased reliability and effortless maintenance. On the two models with higher processing power, the user can easily remove the electronics from the touchscreen ‘head’ when it comes to replacement or upgrade.
The J2 580 offers fault tolerance and high-performance processing for the larger applications that are increasingly run at point-of-sale.
This machine has a very small footprint for space efficiency, plus a double cash drawer. It is dust-proof and has a water-proof display front. An easy slide-in hard disk drive, Compact Flash card and system board all make simple work of user maintenance.
Other options include a fingerprint technology reader to help combat till fraud and an optional secondary, customer-facing display screen for multi-media marketing. The J2 580’s green credentials include a low power input requirement, plus RoHS and WEEE compliance.
J2 615The J2 615 sets a new standard for price and performance and is the first touchscreen Point of Sale computer to offer a Solid State Drive (SSD) as standard in addition to standard 1GB of RAM.
Providing brilliant performance, the J2 615 features the Intel Atom processor and the 945GSE/ICH7M chipset.
Designed especially with reliability in mind, this system features convection cooling that requires no fan; as well as an 8GB solid state drive for storage, thereby eliminating all moving parts from the system.
The ELO touch controller and the ELO resistive touchscreen gives unmatched touch responsiveness and reliability. This unique computer does not compromise and offers full featured I/O ports. It is one of the best integrated touchscreen solutions available in the marketplace today.
J2 Retail System's NewsroomPinnacle Hospitality Systems & E-Brands embrace J2's green POSDisney's latest culinary destination implements green POS terminals from J2 Retail Systems
Pinnacle Hospitality Systems has been improving the US hospitality industry for over 20 years through strategic point-of-sale control and optimisation. Pinnacle leads the way in restaurant POS software, hardware, solutions and service, providing the hospitality industry with the most user-friendly and effective point-of-sale interfaces available today.
E-Brands is a multi-concept US group of over 17 unique restaurants with a focus on stellar food and service. Currently, E-Brands owns and operates six Timpano Chophouse and Martini Bars, three Samba Rooms, one Taqueria Canonita, three Aquaknox, one David Burke, one Salsa Orlando, one Canonita Express , and the much anticipated addition to Disney’s Orlando cuisine - Paradiso 37.
Utilising POSitouch POS products provided by Pinnacle Hospitality Systems, E-Brands has also begun to incorporate green POS monitors, the first of which will be used in Paradiso 37’s Disney location. The J2 650 provided by Pinnacle will save energy and money for Paradiso 37.
The J2 650 touchscreen monitor includes environmentally-friendly features similar to the power-saving technology found in laptop computers. The units are equipped with an energy-saving “green mode” that switches the fans off and lowers the Intel Celeron Core processor speed down to 1.0 GHz, reducing power consumption by up to 25 percent.
E-Brands utilises its POSitouch restaurant POS in most of its locations, opting for seamlessly implemented digital surveillance strategies, staff scheduling, a depot service for out-of-state locations and other money- and time-saving tools provided by the POS software.
Anthony Gomez, Director of IT for E-Brands, had the following to say about Pinnacle and POSitouch: “We currently have Pinnacle/POSitouch systems from Texas to Chicago, from Washington D.C. to Florida. The level of support is far superior to our legacy product. We call one number for any problems, anywhere. Pinnacle is interested in helping us maintain our systems at the most economic manner without sacrificing service. We switched to Pinnacle in 2005 for new sites and are replacing the previous POS as needed. Labour costs and loss prevention have been improved significantly.”
For more information on Pinnacle Hospitality Systems, visit http://www.pinnaclehs.com, and for E-Brands restaurant concepts, visit http://www.e-brands.net.
Contemporary technology takes a traditional business to new heights
Apparel retailer, Robert Goddard, implements a point-of-sale and e-commerce solution from LOIS Systems and J2 Retail SystemsJ2 and its software partner LOIS Systems have revealed details of the multi-channel solution they have put in place for the apparel retailer, Robert Goddard.
Robert Goddard is an independent clothing business with stores located in Wisbech, Spalding and Ely. Each sells womenswear, menswear and accessories from leading design houses in Europe and America. Formal and casualwear ranges include covetable brands such as Gant, Tommy Hilfiger, Ted Baker, Lacoste and Lyle & Scott.
Run for several generations as a family concern, Robert Goddard was recently purchased by young entrepreneurs Oliver Tookman and James McAlinden. They set about layering contemporary technology and new marketing ideas over the traditional values of service, selection and quality that had generated Robert Goddard’s perennial appeal. “We were very keen to implement the most cost-effective and productive system on the market,” explains Oliver Tookman.
In addition to having a leading-edge EPoS system in each of the stores, the new management’s main objective was to create an online presence, enabling customers to purchase with confidence from home. To streamline operations across store-based and web-based channels, Tookman and McAlinden looked for an integrated EPoS and e-commerce solution that would run the entire business. Their search led them to LOIS Systems, whose software and services can guarantee a transactional web presence and point-of-sale performance, all supported by a single technology.
LOIS composed a modular, all-in-one solution to meet Robert Goddard’s needs. Seamless interaction between shop and web was a prerequisite. Two fully-managed web sites were created, of which the primary one is linked into stockholding in the three stores. This integrated, live stock management system provides the backbone for all computing processes and for the business.
Next came the selection of integrated PC-based tills for each of the stores. LOIS Systems’ chosen partner was J2 Retail Systems. As Steve Waller, Managing Director of LOIS Systems, comments: “The J2s are aesthetically pleasing units, fanless and silent. We were happy to recommend them as we know them to be reliable and really durable.” The J2 hardware works perfectly with the LOIS software, which was designed for touchscreen operation.
Ease of use was important, so the team looked for a system that was intuitive, reduced the likelihood of errors, and enabled staff to focus their time on selling, not on managing complex stock control processes. The system also had to be ‘fit for purpose’ and tailored to the apparel sector. The LOIS system was developed inhouse by a fashion retailer that was unable to find an appropriate tool. It has significantly evolved and remains grounded within real world of retail, combining technical innovation with practicality.
“We are thrilled with both LOIS and J2,” enthuses Oliver Tookman.
At the heart of the LOIS system is live integration of stock across the stores and online. This can be monitored minute-by-minute to optimise sell-through rates, and removes any reliance on overnight polling. Stockholding is managed from the company’s head office and uses intelligent selection to fulfill online orders, taking into account the different products held in each shop and reducing the amount of stock that needs to be held. Warehouse functionality allows supplier orders to be input and easily managed. Centralised stock control means that separate warehouses are not needed for the two channels to market.
Inter-store messaging and sophisticated reporting functions give the owners the insight they need to move and fine-tune stock based on sales performance. The availability of live reporting via speed dial displays is a good motivator, as staff across the stores observe each other’s performance and compete to outsell them.
The tills have turned out to be the perfect vehicle for the LOIS system, plus touchscreen functionality eliminates the clutter of a keyboard and a mouse at point-of-sale where counter space is needed for wrapping goods. States Oliver Tookman: “We were very keen on the space-saving of an integrated system. The processor is fast enough for every job we need it to do and we were impressed when we realised how quiet the units are.”
By concentrating the till user onto the screen rather than a keyboard, the management team has seen how touchscreen operating allows for better customer interaction and less error. “Touchscreen operation is fantastic and it looks impressive.” The tills do much more than manage accounting processes; they provide the owners with a complete working environment. The units have been linked into a CCTV camera system in each store, so with controlled access, it is possible to see what is going on right across the business. This is an ideal tool where a small number of key individuals need have a complete handle on a multi-site business.
LOIS SYSTEMS www.lois-systems.co.uk
Specialist retail solutions provider, LOIS Systems, conceived its software and services from the shop floor upwards. The company’s origins are in fashion retail and it was for the requirements of its Little London Boutique that development took place. Unable to source an appropriate system off-the-shelf, LOIS created one that is simple to use and rich in functionality.
LOIS keeps up with new trends and efficiencies in both IT and retail and, today, new retailer partners are using the LOIS system and helping the company to broaden its scope. The result is a one-stop solution that is agile enough for single stores and comprehensive enough for the largest multi-store enterprises.
Logical processes flow in conjunction with normal retail functions. Their pivot is a single, integrated stock management system, which enables retailers to manage product across stores, mail order and the internet in real-time. This universal, multi-channel approach minimises stockholding and maximises efficiency.
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