The National Association of Pawnbrokers has published its review of the Pawnbroking trade, which summarises the state of the market, revenues, market size and other useful information about the trade.

For example, the review identified 290 firms deployed across 1,058 stored which in total have around 350,000 customers a year. Lending was around £300 million.

Click here for the full review

Our Repairs software has always had the capability for jewellers to preview and photograph an item before it is handed to the repairer and on its return using a WIA-compliant camera connected to the PC hosting the repairs software. This can prevent arguments over an item’s condition before and after a repair.

With the widespread use of and easy access to other types of camera and now smartphones, we have upgraded the imaging function in the repairs software to allow images to be attached to a repair using pictures downloaded from any device and selected using standard Windows Explorer functionality. 

Catherine How of B P Jewellery Brighton wins June's NAJ Jet 1 Award. Congratulations Catherine!

You're patient, tactful and prepared to take time with people.

You can help people understand how to use new software.

You get great satisfaction from imparting your knowledge.

You're exactly who we want to train and support our clients.

Bransom Retail Systems is the UK leader in stock management and EPoS systems for retail jewellers, and our busy Customer Support team in Hemel Hempstead is looking to expand its team training and supporting our many clients with their systems.

Working as part of a close-knit and highly-experienced team, you'll be responsible for providing both in-store and online training and telephone support on our range of Stock Management, EPoS and Repairs software, from the planning stage right through installation and commissioning.

You'll be based in our Hemel Hempstead offices and be expected to travel anywhere within the UK, Ireland and Channel Isles. Ideally you'll have experience of stock, EPoS and PDQ systems, but excellent customer services skills and training experience are a must.

Proficient skills in Microsoft Office products and experience of using help-desk software are a necessity. Experience with Richmond Help Desk would be a bonus, although not essential.

A full role specification can be found here.

To apply for this challenging position, please email your CV and application cover letter to Emma Garland, Programme Manager

Congratulations to Kevin Miners of Ivor Doble, Exeter, on winning May's NAJ jet 1 award!

The recent introduction of the GDPR  has meant a great deal of work for any company that holds and processes data on its staff, customers and suppliers, and we've been proactively developing new features that will help our customers reach compliance with the new legislation.

For retailers, the GDPR has meant an evaluation of what data they hold on their customers, how they track their consent to receive marketing communications, and what to do if an individual requests a copy of any data held or wishes to have their data deleted.

To help manage these new requirements and requests, we have enhanced the data management facilities within bsmart² to allow the extract and printing of all of a customer’s details, and deletion of that customer data if required together with an audit trail of those actions and new methods of gathering consent for marketing.

At point-of-sale, a pop-up window appears when a new customer is created to remind the counter staff to ask for the customer’s consent to marketing, by email, post, telephone, SMS or other method. For existing customers, staff can be prompted to update consent if a purchase is made after a set period of time. Custom text can be added to guide the operator through the consent process, such as privacy policies and unsubscribe methods.

Within bsmart, the Customer Marketing module has new functions to enable the retailer to give a customer a copy of all the personal data held on the system. That data may be deleted (complete with audit trail) or amended to the customer’s request.

Congratulations to Hannah Bettambeau of David Christopher Ross-on-Wye, April's winner of the NAJ Jet 1 Award.

Congratulations to Kayleigh Hammett of LMG Bath, winner of March's NAJ Jet 1 Award