training in St. Louis

This past weekend I'd gone to St. Louis for an intensive two day training session on this new POS (point of sale) system I'm going to have at the store to further streamline operations at the store. The POS system will allow me to have better management of my ordering, sales, customer info, and really just a plethora of data at my fingertips. I'll have my hardware, inventory, and customer data entered in the next couple of weeks so I expect that by the second week in May I'll have my new POS system raring to go.

My distributor is creating a POS system presently that was supposed to debut this past October, but now they're hoping to roll it out this summer. I went with this system called MOBY designed by Ben of Star Clipper Comics in St. Louis along with his friend Mark. MOBY has been used by some distinguished comics stores for five years now, it works on both PCs and Macs (I use a Mac), and plays well with other distributors. I went to St. Louis so that I could get one on one personalized training from Ben and his lovely wife AJ and Mark. There was a lot of info to take in and with all the time it's going to take to enter my store's inventory and customer base to the system that's more than a little intimidating, but I know it'll be worth it once I'm done doing that.

I'd never been to St. Louis before and really didn't do anything around the city (other then go to a couple of places to eat) as I got in late Friday afternoon after a crazy day of traveling to get there (a long story) and Saturday and Sunday were devoted to learning MOBY. The first picture here is one of the few photos I took after eating Saturday night of this beautiful tree in the downtown area where I was staying. After the training session on Saturday, Ben drove me past this awesome huge park in St. Louis (I think he said it's the biggest public park in the U.S.), which was also near the St. Louis zoo, art museum and history museum. We also went past the Washington University there which is comprised of several buildings all of which were architecually beautiful. The greater St. Louis population is about 2 million, which is much bigger than I thought and the city and housing neighborhoods I'd passed by looked like they had a lot of character. I'll definitely b returning with Kate at some point to St. Louis to properly explore this city.
This is a HUGE Uglydoll lounging in one of the front windows of Ben and AJ's amazing store Star Clipper.

Ben and AJ's Star Clipper Comics is one of the most classiest and diverse comic book stores I've ever been to and they have a great eye for creating a visually attractive store. Star Clipper Comics is located right in the center of a very hipster part of downtown St. Louis and I'd say it's a must visit place for anyone visiting St. Louis. Thanks for all the hospitality and MOBY POS training Ben, AJ, and Mark!