Ultra Football Will Never Walk Alone with Shopify POS

The Challenge

When Ultra Football‘s flagship store was opened in 2018, and its point-of-sale (POS) system was not working as seamlessly as it desired. Utilising separate systems, and not having a clear idea of stock levels in the palm of every staff member’s hand, was impacting customer experience, and delivered disparity between the online and in-store experience. 

The Results

As Ultra Football was already using Shopify for its online retailing, the decision to move to Shopify POS was an easy one. Now, Ultra Football has real-time inventory management in-store, click and collect, and has grown its new omni-channel loyalty program to 60,000 members.

Founded in 2018, Ultra Football’s flagship ‘store’ in Alexandria is really more of an experience than just another place to shop. It has an indoor soccer pitch, FIFA EA Sports and PS4 lounge, customisation zone and an Italian Restaurant. Ultra Football wants to be a ‘mecca for everything football’; from being on the pitch to singing in the stand, it’s got the kit, brands and products for the ultra football fan.

Ultra Football’s approach to customers and loyalty is a deeply ingrained part of its culture, and the team is constantly building on the offering for customers. Upon opening their store, they realised their online and offline experience could be better integrated. They also wanted to offer a loyalty program and flexible shopping options, including click-and-collect, to ensure customer satisfaction and customer retention.

As Ultra Football were already using Shopify for their online store, once they activated Shopify POS in-store, they were able to seamlessly integrate their online and offline operations into one unified system. Having one system that crosses from online to offline perfectly, is helping Ultra Football to mitigate inefficiencies and potential risks of error that come with managing two separate systems and free up their time for more valuable tasks. 

It’s important the POS and online store are both on Shopify, and they’re not two different systems trying to communicate back and forth. When there’s different systems in the background, it just adds another layer of confusion. Having everything in one system makes it nice and simplified.

Shopify nets new customers and respects their existing ones

Ultra Football decided to put Shopify POS and Loyalty Lion to work for its growing business. Part of Ultra Football’s omnichannel offering is an attractive loyalty program, which is now integrated into the POS for in-person sales and on their website, for online sales – and these are updated live.

Upon launch, Ultra Football segmented customers based on lifetime spend tracked through Shopify, and pre-loaded loyalty points accordingly so customers enjoyed instant rewards. Anytime a new customer spends online or in store, they are automatically added to the loyalty program, which now has 60,000 members. 

The loyalty program integrates with Shopify POS, so on the site as well as on mobile, staff can just click on the customer’s profile and check their points. There’s no manual elements to it, which makes it easy and seamless to use and a great experience for the customer.

For those looking for a high-end personalised service, Ultra Football has recently launched an exclusive shopping experience where customers can pre-pay $500, (which goes towards product spend), and are then treated to a private suite for all their footballing needs, including a drink in hand to watch their favourite teams play nostalgic old games on the TV screens as they shop. These team preferences are intuitively driven via tagging on their customer profile, accessible via their omnichannel profile on Shopify. 

Ultra Football strikes the right balance

Prior to launching Shopify POS, staff would have a long way to walk to check the stockroom to meet a customer’s requests. This often left the customer and the staff member less than happy, and was a critical moment where they could lose sales.

Ultra Football have since updated their service model where every team member utilises both an earpiece and a mobile device increasing their service efficiency and experience. Consumers can also checkout with floor staff, helping to increase in-store conversion.

One of the best parts we have found is each of our staff on the floor now get a mobile device, so they can easily utilise the Shopify POS for orders and even check things like stock and availability. So if someone says, ‘I need a size six’, rather than having to walk out the back, which is a long way to walk, they can tell the customer pretty much straight away. It’s instant.

Ultra Football also finds Shopify POS very easy to use – with barely any training is required when onboarding new staff, meaning scaling up team members in peak seasons is no longer something to fear!

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