Staffords Famous Chocolates Succeeds with ShopKeep
“We use ShopKeep to manage our first store in Porterville, we’re using it in our second store in Los Olivos, and we can’t wait to use it in our third store. It’s a great tool to grow with.”
– Ben, Co-Owner, Stafford’s Famous Chocolates, Porterville, CA
Understanding the business
Stafford’s Famous Chocolates is something of an institution in Porterville, CA, so when local father-and-son team Rob and Ben Taylor found out it was for sale, they knew it was too good an opportunity to pass up. They bought the store in January 2012 and immediately got to work on understanding what they had just purchased.
“ShopKeep has really helped us to better understand the business we took over. For example, after some analysis, we made the difficult decision to stop selling ice cream. We found that the equipment was taking up 25% of our retail space, maintenance was taking 10% of our time, and sales were contributing only 2% of our profits. It was a lot easier to make a major change like that after seeing the reality of the numbers from our reporting.”
Managing multiple locations
Not only did the efficiency and knowledge gained from ShopKeep help the Taylors open a second Stafford’s location, it’s been critical to effectively managing both stores. Rob, the father, has a separate full-time job, while Ben, the son, splits his time between the two stores, which are more than 200 miles apart. As a result, they’ve relied heavily on ShopKeep to stay on top of things and understand their staffing and inventory needs at each location.
“No matter where we are, we can just open up a laptop or the dashboard app and see our sales numbers across both locations. We know what the average ticket price is in each store, we know what our best-sellers are, and we know when each store is busy (and not). That information has allowed us to adjust reorders and staffing levels to help create two distinct, profitable businesses.”
