University of Tennessee Upgrades to Integrated Point of Sale Solution

The University of Tennessee supports over 30,000 students each year in achieving their academic goals with 10 undergraduate and 11 graduate colleges spanning 910 acres with on-campus and off-campus housing. Their campus facilities must be robust enough to support the needs of these students on campus; for this reason, the university recently gave their student bookstore a refresh in design and technology. The student bookstore processes thousands of transactions daily and needs to be as efficient as possible to get students in and out and keep them on schedule for their next class.

The university bookstore is 15,000 square feet, with the potential to serve thousands of students daily—a potential they wanted to realize. To do this, they knew they would need integrated quality hardware that could endure fast-paced, repetitive use.

They approached Elo to replace their aging POS system, along with several other requests. This system integrates 18 checkout stands in their bookstore to process in-person purchases 7 days a week. It would also integrate handheld barcode scanners, magnetic strip readers, dip and tap, and a fully integrated payment processing.

To expand the retail experience, the university additionally wanted a mobile payment solution they could use at sporting events, pop-up merchandising kiosks around campus, and fundraising events on- and off-campus.

“After reviewing the RFP participants, the choice was easy, as Elo provided the highest performance specifications and fully integrated peripheral featured products with the smallest format with local service and support,” said John Pederson, System Administrator for UTK.

Elo collaborated with their retail software provider, Oracle Netsuite, to deliver an integrated solution that would meet the university’s requirements. The solution included EloPOS with Elo Edge Connect 2D Barcode Scanners and Mag Stripe readers as well as PayPoint for Windows systems.

The future of retail experience trends and technology continues to evolve based on consumer demands for quick service. The future of the university retail bookstore may very well include:

• self-service checkout
• touchscreen signage in dorms for meal delivery
• touchscreen signage for standard and special event navigation
• commercial-sized vending machine for 24x7 technology product sales