POS Barcode Scanner used by Jakes Fireworks

Jakes Fireworks

The Customer

Jake’s Fireworks Opens new site is an importer, distributor, and retailer of consumer class fireworks; they celebrate tradition, providing families and friends the opportunity to give their special events a ceremonial bang. As one of the largest distributors in the United States and western hemisphere, the company carries a sizeable retail market footprint, operating nearly 500 fireworks stores across the country, including seasonal pop-up shops that require a specialized Point of Sale (POS) solution.

The Challenge

Jake’s Fireworks needed an easy-to-use, low-cost scanning device to deploy their custom POS solution (“Fuse POS”) to use in temporary stores during the 4th of July holiday season. These pop-up shops open and close quickly, so their temporary employees needed to keep management as simple as possible. The inventory devices had to integrate seamlessly with other components, requiring minimal configuration and set-up out of the box.

“Much of the POS world involves interfacing with antiquated serial device hardware components operating in Windows-based domain environments.  These… are not conducive to what is essentially a mobile sales environment,” said Benjamin Turner, CIO of Jake’s Fireworks.

“We needed an android-compatible device with a robust API that would communicate using modern technologies, like Bluetooth… We were looking for the perfect blend of portability, functionality, and ruggedness. Socket Mobile's S700 and S740 models helped us achieve that,” explained Mr. Turner.

The Socket Mobile Solution

The colorful S700 and S740 were the answer to Jake’s Fireworks’ problems. Modernizing pop-up-shops by dropping old-school registers and picking up a high-functioning POS system brought them a “… virtual treasure trove of data analytics that will amount to millions of dollars in savings,” said Mr. Turner.

The Results

Socket Mobile's “rock-solid” devices made reliability and connectivity an afterthought. The colorful S700 and S740 models allowed Jake’s Fireworks to focus on application development, not hardware or data capture issues – the typical rabbit hole for POS.  With more than 1300 Socket Mobile S700 and S740 barcode scanners in the field, Jake’s Fireworks operates more efficiently, managing inventory in real-time, making better-targeted decisions for product distribution.

“Sales are up. Shrinkage is down,” concluded Mr. Turner.