We spoke with Andre, one of the owners of Gym Time, a gym that has been operating for 3 years in Peru's capital city. He tells us how they have been moving forward with their business. How, as it progressed, it was possible to use Loyverse at every stage.

How did you start your business?

The business started three years ago, and the process has been radical, we started from one floor to two floors to three floors. Thanks to God. We have been making details and remodeling we have advanced step by step. Here in Peru, there are two big gyms that have many locations, and we see that their attention is not good, and we used this to improve our business. In the area, there is not this type of gym, so we try to do something better, something that stands out, and customers come and say: “that’s it, here is the one”.
In these years, we have been managing it in a very old way, and we wanted to see ways to improve and also have more control over sales and inventory. We always did everything manually with no records, and it was complicated. Now we have a membership sales area and a cafeteria that are inside the gym facilities, we make all the sales of the cafeteria the protein, water, drinks, etc. 

How did you find Loyverse?

A while ago, I was looking for a POS for a cafeteria, and I found it. After 6 months I was talking with my partner and since we need to implement things that we had left aside, he bought a POS that already had their system installed. But they forced us to continue with their service, so I looked for a way to uninstall this and install a different one. Then I found Loyverse again, and I went to YouTube to look for more information and see if it was compatible with the device and I installed it, and as it is more friendly to the public with all its functions, I started using it, and it worked for me using the printed receipts, the reports, the stock control, etc.  

How many Points of Sale do you have in your gym?

Inside the gym, I have a POS that allows me to make sales from the cafeteria, but also I realized that more stores could be added. Then I made two more stores, a store for the sauna, since we have an inside sauna, and the other as a store for protein, in this way we can manage a record of each item independently.

Is there something that makes your business stand out from the others?

Apart from the facilities service, the ability of our workers to give good customer service, it is something that I rescue a lot here because among the competition they forget about it, they only worry about the sales. In our gym, we try to follow up in general with our clients. Here in the area the gyms have a lot of machines but they don't care so much about the aesthetic part, the visual part, in our gym the client feels satisfied, wherever he goes it looks nice, is pleasant to the client and in this way, we try to reach our goal. Together with my partner with whom we have started, we have other projects as an objective, to create another location, we are also starting a restaurant and we want it to become something like a chain with the same philosophy.

Has Loyverse changed the way of operating your business?

For sure, because we have better control of my business. We have a lot of trust in our staff, but we always need to have control of everything and with Loyverse it was very quick for me to do the shift management, cash control, stock control, and review all these things and I could do it from another device, from home, from wherever I am it is much more practical for me, for example, we sold some goods, I see my inventory control, with that I project how often I have to buy things, which is what I miss, which is what I sell the most. All this has made it easy for me to see if there are things that are not selling much to think of a way to accelerate their sales before these products expire, this gives me the facility to rise the sales faster.

We use the CDS and with this app, the customer can see what he is requesting, see the prices, and everything else. It is much faster before it took too long to close the cash register and I had to be present, in this case not anymore, I can leave an employee and he does the shift closing for me, and he can send a photo to the internal group that we have of the company and the same I can review my application, be it the same day or the next day. The option of adding different payment types has also helped me a lot to improve or speed up things that used to take a long time. 

How do you see the future of your business next to Loyverse?

We are on 2 projects to make a restaurant and a hamburger, in two different places and we are looking for a way to work with Loyverse since the system has the functions I need, it is helping me a lot, and it does not have any obstacles.

Concerning the tools I have seen, inventory, and employee management, are the ones that catch my attention the most, and it's great, for example, Loyverse provide me with the sales per day, per month, the net of my cost, so I know how much I'm earning, and I can even see the refunds.

Sometimes employees make mistakes when charging. For example, here we have two forms of payment, and sometimes instead of choosing the correct payment option they choose others and this makes a difference at the time of cash closing. I can correct it until before closing a shift, after the closing it does not give me the option to do anything. 

For this reason before closing the shift or even since it is a remote way that I can use from home or from the phone, my employees inform me if there is any difference and I see how to handle it from a distance. From that point on, it's like there was no more of that problem.

Would you like to leave a message for other entrepreneurs?

We started with the idea that step by step we were developing and being persistent because there are very good days, but there are days when you are left with nothing. In the beginning, we were quite discouraged because it was not what we thought, it did not move as we thought, but with time we realized what are the good dates and bad dates and as a result of this, we can project ourselves and know what to do and how to manage the business. After so much sacrifice comes a bit of peace in each one of us and the possibility of enjoying all that you have advanced. And the best satisfaction is to see the business stable, that it is bearing fruit, and that you can live a little more peacefully. There comes a time when it is nice to see that we started from so little and now we have great facilities, with other projects and the key has been not to be the same, to make a difference in the area we manage and move forward because we never stop learning there are still things that we will have to continue implementing and improving.

Thank you very much for your time.  

GymTime Social Media:
https://www.instagram.com/gymtimeperu/