Pets, Treats, People, and the Cloud

The answer to the question “how to sell more” lies in excellent customer relations, and in delivering more value than your customers would expect. 

The goal of a good pet store is to distribute healthy, fresh food and durable toys to thousands of pets on daily basis, making the animals happy and keeping their owners coming back for more.

For this, the management of back-office tasks and the unseen books need to be done exceptionally well, so the retail store owner can optimize the supply chain and offer merchandise that their customers truly need.

The retail software helps to reduce the time needed for sales and purchasing while maintaining the high standards and accuracy necessary for the job. Semi-automated stock replenishment, inventory reporting, and anywhere-anytime access to your historical data can minimize many time-consuming tasks.

So, here we go, meet our super nice retail software customer Heidi Neal whose chain of Loyal Biscuit stores is about to hit it big time all over Maine, US.

After years in the banking industry, she, with her husband, Joel, first purchased the Rockland, Maine store in 2010 and has since added two locations in Belfast and Camden and a fourth location that opened this summer in Waterville.
4 locations -Rockland, Camden, Belfast, and Waterville.

Loyal Biscuit logo

The Loyal Biscuit Co. is an award-winning, family-owned, dog and cat supply boutique with locations in Waterville, Belfast, Camden, and Rockland, Maine.

Loyal Biscuit is an outstanding destination for the best in dog and cat nutrition, toys, treats, collars and more. They’re not really specialized for goat nor unicorn stuff, but if you’d ask, Heidi sure could find something.

As a shrewd extra feature, Loyal Biscuit stores have the best Self-Serve Dog Wash facility around Maine. Besides pet shops on location, Loyal Biscuit also ships orders anywhere in the United States.

ERPLY’s Retail software provides the cloud-based retail software backbone for Loyal Biscuit’s operations.

When we asked Heidi, if she’s satisfied with our retail software, she replied: “Things are going well with ERPLY.”

For initial concerns she said, she doesn’t really remember a lot of her initial concerns, but

“I definitely was looking for something that would grow with us and help me get a handle on inventory management”.

ERPLY’s retail software indeed has a large set of inventory management software tools. In fact, the retail suite is more powerful than several dedicated inventory software systems.

“I do really like the PO ordering aspect, receiving orders, physical stocktaking,” Heidi Neal from Loyal Biscuit says.
Loyal Biscuit logo
In her company, there is a lot to manage with retail software.

“We carry a great selection of healthy foods for dogs and cats – all foods are corn, soy, and wheat free!” tells Heidi Neal.

Loyal Biscuit is devoted to the finest, all-natural and organic ingredients. Heidi’s company is doing a great job to purchase most of the foods from local Maine sources.

“The treats are produced in small batches so they are as fresh as possible,” Heidi adds, describing the complexity of her business operations, which would be rather hard to run without proper retail and inventory back-end software.

Loyal Biscuit is so good in its stock management that they can sell raw goat’s milk.
Raw goat’s milk contains everything from vitamins, minerals, and enzymes, to protein, electrolytes, and fatty acids, and is sometimes referred to as the most complete food known. It’s highly beneficial for cats, dogs, and even domestic birds like chicken.

Besides selling foods and goodies, Loyal Biscuit manufactures a sturdy and colorful toy tug for dogs. Called Tug ME Toy, the braided rugs are handcrafted in Maine, to be washable, durable and to stand up to seriously intense tugging, as can be seen from a video on the company’s website.

“There are no raw edges or stitching in the braided area for pups to get their teeth caught in, providing a safe alternative to traditional rope toys,” Heidi says, pointing out the competitive edge of the product.

Heidi is not only relying on other producers. In 2011 she teamed up with April Thibodeau, to create a treat line called Fidelis Biscuit.

Fidelis Biscuit label

Fidelis Biscuit was recently awarded Best Maine Pet Product for the second year in a row by Downeast Dog News.

And it does not stop there!


Last year, monthly magazine Pet Product News International honored Loyal Biscuit with Community Outreach Award.

Loyal Biscuit Community Outreach Award

There will be a full profile story of Loyal Biscuit in the February 2015 edition of the magazine.

Just to name a few good deeds, two Loyal Biscuit locations serve as satellite locations for the adoption of cats and kittens.
In two years, Loyal Biscuit has found homes for 200 cats and kittens.


Every event Loyal Biscuit hosts raise money for animal-related organizations.

Raising money to help animals
In the last few years, Loyal Biscuit has donated more than $25,000 and helped to raise even more.
There are “Round-Up” programs, nail clipping clinics, microchipping clinics, and animal shelters in the long list.

For now, Heidi’s business is well managed with built-in features that ERPLY’s retail and inventory software provide.
If needed in the future, the application programming interface (API) makes it possible to create highly specific retail software solutions that a retail chain needs.

Scalability is the keyword, and that is why we have Inventory API in our retail software suite.

In fact, ERPLY’s software essentially provides a dedicated inventory management software solution. It’s a solid, scalable and full-featured cloud-based retail and inventory back-end.

There are inexhaustible possibilities for running a shopping mall, a brick-and-mortar store, a website, a document repository and/or a production management system.

For Heidi Neal from Loyal Biscuit, what are her future plans that the pets and their happy owners can benefit from?

She’s telling that she yet has to figure out the right way to deal with discounts and manufacturers coupons – so there are improvements to come that her customers can take advantage of.

So, all in all, if you’re planning to open a retail business that serves cats, dogs, horses, goats, unicorns or other human’s best friends, ask Heidi what she thinks about using ERPLY’s retail software for running and expanding the business.

All right, we already revealed a bit of what she might say. Here is what she told us in conclusion: “I would recommend ERPLY, and I have several times. Many of my referrals have selected you”.

And for that, we thank you, Heidi!

About Erply

ERPLY LTD is an international software company, providing a wide range of cloud-based enterprise management software. Erply’s focus is solutions for scalable businesses such as retail companies and franchise operations, providing retail software, franchise software, the point of sale software, and much more.

Based in New York City, Erply has offices in United Kingdom, Australia, Denmark, and Estonia. While 70 percent of our customers are in the US, the client reach is spread worldwide across 15 countries.

We now have over 100,000 stores on our platform, including large retail chains such as Elizabeth Arden Retail, Athlete’s Foot, Carat London, Viasat, and Rapid Refill. We are also powering international organizations, including UNICEF and the United Nations.

Erply’s Retail Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software suite is based on hybrid cloud technology, and incorporates POS (software, mobile, tablet and hardware), CRM software, Product Information Management software, Inventory and Supply Chain Management software, Billing and Accounting integration, e-Commerce, Franchise Software and many more tools to support the growth of your business.

Erply’s business software design philosophy is holistic. All applications, tools, and databases are designed for seamless integration. Each software module works right out of the box but can be customized to meet industry- or company-specific needs. It also integrates with other software thanks to a powerful API.

Our software helps businesses around the world increase revenue, build loyalty, reach new customers, and optimize supply, storage and handling costs.

With Erply, there are convenient options of a Free Trial or a free Demo Session, so you can test and pre-evaluate the countless possibilities a modern retail software has to offer.

Please contact us directly at:

1-855-463-7759, info@erply.com or visit our website at https://erply.com or our international representations (USA, UK, Australia, Nordic Countries).

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