Valley CiDS switch to EPR adds £100,000 to Gift Aid
Background
Valley CiDS have 34 Lighthouse Charity Shops, a distribution hub and a café spread across the counties of Derbyshire & Nottinghamshire. They joined Eproductive in Autumn 2022, rolling out EPR Touch tills, colour 10” Customer Display Unit (CDU) and our EPR Stockroom Hubs in November & December 2022.
Impact of the EPRTouch system
Gift aid sales conversion has increased to 30% from 12% pre-installation so far, and is expected to grow even more
Gift Aid Revenue grew by over £100,000 (Jan-Oct 2023 vs. pre installation Jan-Oct 2022)
90% of all donors are now signed up with an email address
Feedback from Valley CiDS
“The move to Eproductive has been a great success. One EPOS system might seem much like another, but our experience with Eproductive dispels that. It’s boosted revenue, staff morale, and made managing our retail operation so much easier. I think the EPR Touch system along with Eproductive’s customer service is the best on the market.”
Harriet Webster, Retail Director, Valley CiDS
Key Improvements
The speed of processing and labelling gift aided stock with the EPR Hub
The use of tablets if the till point is busy to process Gift Aid donations
The ability to process Cash Donations and claim the Gift Aid with no paperwork
The tills’ Add Donation prompt on the till and CDU has already generated £16,000 extra for the charity
Simplicity - the EPR Touch software has been well received by volunteers and staff in all areas of the business, improving attitudes towards Gift Aid
Engagement with customers - the large colour CDU uses a screen saver of images promoting the charity’s work, future events etc.
Customer Service
Eproductive have a reputation for excellent training and support with a highly regarded helpdesk. Valley CiDS were particularly positive about the specialist Gift Aid and New Goods training given to the retail senior management team, recently posting unprompted feedback about Eproductive on LinkedIn:-
“A quick shout out to Eproductive Ltd. – having moved just over 12 months ago we have seen some amazing results and were able to use a vast amount of data from various reports to help support our changes and highlight positive impact”
LinkedIn post March 2024, Harriet Webster, Retail Director, Valley CiDS
Sustainability – Landfill & CO2 savings
More and more shoppers are switched on to the environmental impact of buying second-hand. *52% of Millennials and *48% of Gen Zs have sold clothing on re-sale platforms. Sustainability is seen as a massive positive for charity shops. (*FARA research 2023).
Eproductive is currently the only EPOS till that shows the CO2 and landfill savings made by buying second-hand on the customer facing display unit (CDU). With each second-hand item added to the transaction list, the CDU shows the CO2 saving totalled in green.
Lighthouse Charity shops started showing this information to shoppers in Spring 2024. An average weight, CO2 conversion factor and a substitution factor are used to estimate the saving. More detail is available on the Eproductive website here.
My Charity Shop App - Landfill & CO2 savings
Valley CiDS joined the My Charity shop app in July 2023, a free app that keeps your Gift Aid card on your phone to scan at the till when you donate.
The Green tile of the My Charity Shop app uses the same calculations as the till’s CDU, showing total weekly savings of buying second hand vs. new for all shops in kg of landfill and kg of CO2.
“The retail team delivered on exciting developments such as our new supporter app along with sustainability statistics readily available highlighting our environmental impact. All thanks to Eproductive!”
LinkedIn post August 2023, Harriet Webster, Retail Director, Valley CiDS
