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Today we interviewed one of the owners of "La Lavandería Company" located in a tourist city in Peru. They started as a touristic entrepreneurship, but due to the pandemic and the lack of tourists, they decided to take a risk and expand for local customers. Could you tell us how you started your business and what your experience has been over the years? We have been working for 4 years in Arequipa, a city in the south of Peru. In the city, the main customers were tourists, we were located in the historical center where many tourists arrived, and because of their needs, we realized that it was a good opportunity to create a laundry that delivers the service on the same day. Everything was going well until there were no more tourists because of the pandemic, and we had to close, but it was a push that led us to think about offering our services to local people. And that's when we opened in other places around the city, and we did quite well, at the moment, we have 3 laundromats. Now the tourists are coming back and little by little we are also covering that sector again. In relation to Loyverse, how did you find it and how did you adapt the Loyverse application for your business? I have been working for 10 years in the area of technology, in the area of networks, and communications, it is not the first business we are starting, but it is the one we have been running for the longest time. When starting a business, it is always necessary to look for tools that are already available, so I tried several programs, but every time something was missing, and I found some limitations such as needing a computer, needing an internet connection, etc. until I found Loyverse. I used it day and night, the first requirement we needed was the printing of tickets, I looked for a printer, configured it, and it worked perfectly, also in our business the customers in some cases pay in 2 days, I solved this with the Open Tickets feature. When we were opening the other store, we found a problem, since the employee would use the app, and we did not want him to have the same access as the owner, for this reason, we took the option of employees which is fabulous, we manage which tools the employee can use and which not. I have also used the kitchen printing tool, in our case, there is no kitchen, but we use this option for the laundries in the back, and there we can print customer orders. Since Loyverse adapted very well to what we needed, after some time we created several stores in the system, and we got the reports of each of them in excel files. Now I want to learn more about integrations and APIs to be able to connect our business with other programs. What is the feature you like the most, and the feature you use the most in Loyverse? There are many things that I like, but for the relationship with the customer, which in my opinion is what has generated the most revenue for us, are the impressions and personalization of the tickets, every day if we want we can add information on the receipt. I can quickly write a promotion or information from the Back Office, and in a simple way when the receipt is printed, the customer receives the information about the promotion of the day or whatever I want to transmit. I use the footer, or the final part, where I add promotions or little messages like "thank you for visiting us" or phrases that can encourage and change someone's day. This works very well for me from a marketing point of view, customers are happy to read it. As we create the branches in the system, we create and customize the tickets for each location. This would be the option that I like the most because, in other applications, they don't allow you to be adding anything or just a small text and that's it. Something that I particularly like a lot is also the reports, at any time of the day I have access to them, in real time I can review the sales of my employees, and these reports help me to analyze, for example, the dates in which one service/item is more sold than another, that helps me to plan for the future, how to continue to improve our service. We are in good sync in every sense with your system because, for example, when the internet is not available we can continue working and when the internet comes back everything is synchronized. We make our deliveries, we go with the cell phone, with the hand printer. Everything is great, that's what I can say. Thinking long term, a goal you have for your business? Our goal, for now, is to have new stores in a neighboring city, which is Cuzco, and that is our goal as a company, and of course, I would continue with Loyverse, I already manage the methodology, and I have even created a document that I send to my workers on how they should use the app. Finally, if you want to leave a message for the readers and those starting a business, what recommendation would you give them? I can tell them that Loyverse is a system for entrepreneurs, for those who want to start Loyverse, adapts to each stage, the free version to start, and then using the employee management tools as in my case, to have more and more control over your business, I think it is one of the first tools that an entrepreneur can find. And with the topic of recommendation, I can tell you that Loyverse is very functional and very simple for anyone, no matter the age. In my case for example, my family has seen how I use the app, and they ask me how it works so I have also installed the application for their business, they have a restaurant and cafeteria, and they are doing great with the app. This is my experience for 4 years now, always looking to improve and learn. Thank you Mr. Jesus Nicolas for your time and for sharing your experience with us.

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/