Fashion label ditches dial-up, deploys VoIP

The parent company of fashion labels Marcs, Morrissey, Jigsaw and David Lawrence, has ditched dial-up for a countrywide 512kbps WAN, which has allowed it to deploy VoIP and track its inventory in real-time.

Previously, the company — M Webster Holdings — was using a 56kbps PSTN dial-up service. The new network, deployed by vendor Uecomm, links the company's 200 Australian sites at data speeds almost 10 times faster than the previous system.

The decision to go for 512Kbps and not higher was "partially financial, and partially that the 512Kbps was probably exceeding the limit of what [M Webster Holdings] would need" according to Adam Ioakim, systems accountant for M Webster Holdings.

The increased speed means the company's stock systems now work in real time instead of being an overnight batch process. "With the 56Kbps it would be an overnight transfer," he said.

It makes a big difference if a piece of clothing is in stock, he said. "It's a tough market. It's very important that the product is there when the customer wants it."

Over the last month, three of its stores have started using the faster connection to trial VoIP. All calls between stores, which account for 75 percent of outward bound calls, now cost nothing, Ioakim said. "We're not losing any voice quality," he added.

The stores have also been able to introduce CCTV, which is not only for preventing loss of stock, but also for store owners to see how other stores are setting out their goods, Ioakim said.

The company chose Uecomm because it had experience working with other major retailers such as Bob Jane T-Mart, Colorado and Crazy Johns. M Webster Holdings has had a long affiliation with Optus, and the telco led them to Uecomm, Ioakim said.

Ioakim would not say how much the system had cost, only that "it was cheaper than the other options".