"With more customers shopping online, we are looking forward to using Retail Pro Prism to integrate our in-store inventory with a website. The Retail Pro ecommerce integration will help us improve inventory and streamline how we operate."

- Steve Banta, Executive Director

How USS Lexington is streamlining inventory management and unifying operations with Retail Pro Prism

Tell us about USS Lexington Museum.

The USS Lexington, the world's longest-serving and oldest aircraft carrier at the time of her decommissioning, serves as a naval aviation museum, educational facility, and popular area tourist attraction. During World War II, the carrier participated in nearly every major operation in the Pacific Theater and spent a total of 21 months in combat. The USS Lexington (CV-16) was commissioned for battle before it could receive the “dazzle” camouflage used at the time, so the standard paint scheme gave it a blueish appearance. During the war, the Japanese incorrectly reported Lexington sunk no less than four times! Yet, each time she "returned” to fight again. This led the propagandist Tokyo Rose to nickname her "The Blue Ghost" - a name proudly adopted by the crew.

The USS Lexington Museum is an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that is completely self-sufficient, never receiving annual operating funds from government agencies.

The revenue that keeps this national treasure open comes solely from admissions, memberships, special events, Ship's Store sales, the Camp LEX youth overnight program, donations, and grants. These revenues have covered all expenses not only to operate and maintain the ship, but also to fund all capital improvements.

Climbing the ladders and walking the passageways is like stepping right into a history book. At the USS Lexington Museum, history comes to life with real pictures, historic artifacts, and real stories of people that served our great country. Well over 8 million people have visited the LEX since she opened as a Museum in 1992.

Please share a day in the life of your role and responsibilities at the company:

As Executive Director of the USS LEXINGTON Museum, I am responsible for ensuring this historic ship is preserved and shared with our guests through tour routes, artifacts, educational programs, special events, and public outreach.

For what specific business challenges did you choose Retail Pro?

We needed an easy way to see our daily and monthly reports. We were all manual before using Retail Pro Prism, so it was difficult to extract the data needed for reporting and it required hours of manual work.

What business challenges are you solving with the software today?

Retail Pro Prism gives us better visibility analyzing our business with comprehensive and flexible reporting. The hours we have saved on finding all the data enables staff to be on the sales floor helping our customers. All with one click of the mouse!

Has your Retail Pro been specially configured or customized for your business needs? What challenges or needs were these customizations designed to address? Please describe.

The POS system previously being used in the museum was in desperate need of an upgrade. The improvements Retail Pro has brought in inventory management and daily operations have greatly increased Ship's Store productivity.

Retailers are striving to unify commerce. What does that mean for your company? What are you doing to unify commerce?

Unifying commerce will give our customers a seamless shopping experience providing them with accurate, consistent information and services. We are looking to unify all our technologies with the Retail Pro Prism platform software.

We have on our "to-do" list: integrate a website, ecommerce, tracking membership, and implementing a customer loyalty program.

What does the future look like for your company? What are some of your plans for growth, expansion, customer initiatives, etc.?

With more customers shopping online, we are looking forward to using Retail Pro Prism to integrate our in-store inventory with a website. The Retail Pro ecommerce integration will help us improve inventory and streamline how we operate. We are also interested in implementing a customer loyalty program, setting up reward levels to give our customers more benefits in return for their loyalty and to keep them coming back to the store.

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