The Challenge: Blind Operations in a Growing Business
The MakersHub is more than just a retail store — it’s a destination for makers, craftspeople, and artisans across Lagos. They stock everything from hand tools and power equipment to specialty supplies for woodworking, metalwork, and creative trades. It’s the kind of business that requires deep product knowledge, reliable stock availability, and the ability to serve customers who know what they need when they walk through the door.
But behind the shelves stocked with hundreds of tools and equipment, Adeyemi Olalekan was running blind.
“We were operating completely manually,” Adeyemi explains. “I knew we had inventory, but I couldn’t tell you exactly what. I didn’t know our stock value. I didn’t know what we were actually making in profit. And when it came to understanding what customers were buying or where our money was going, I had no answers.”
The business was growing — sales were solid, customers were returning, and reputation was strong. But that growth was happening despite the systems, not because of them. Every operational decision was based on gut feeling, rough memory, and incomplete information.
The Specific Pain Points
Like many growing retail businesses, The MakersHub was managing critical functions across disconnected systems:
Stock levels existed on paper and in people’s heads, but not in a system. Overstocking some items, running out of others, and never knowing the total value of inventory tied up in the store.
Sales were coming in, but profit breakdown by product, category, or supplier was impossible to calculate. Adeyemi didn’t know which tools were most profitable or which categories needed attention.
Managing relationships with multiple suppliers, tracking incoming shipments, understanding what was on order, and coordinating deliveries was a manual, time-consuming process with frequent mistakes.
Transactions were recorded, but there was no way to track which customers were buying what, who the repeat buyers were, or what products moved fastest among different customer segments.
Staff spent hours tracking inventory manually, reconciling sales at month-end, answering questions like “Do we have this in stock?” without real-time data.
Without clear data on inventory turnover, profit margins, and customer behaviour, Adeyemi couldn’t make strategic decisions about what to stock more of, what to phase out, or where to invest.
“I could walk into the store and see what was selling, but I couldn’t explain why. And I definitely couldn’t see the financial picture. You can’t grow a business on intuition alone—you need data. We didn’t have it.”
AOAdeyemi OlalekanCEO, The MakersHub
The Decision: Time to Get Serious About Systems
Adeyemi had been putting off a system upgrade for months. The risk seemed high — data migration, staff retraining, potential disruption during what was already a busy sales season. But the cost of not doing it was becoming clearer every month.
When he discovered RetailWings, he was immediately impressed by the focus on retail, the emphasis on real-time visibility, and the built-in support for businesses like his own. But the real decision came after a consultation with the RetailWings team.
“They understood our business in the first conversation,” Adeyemi recalls. “They didn’t try to sell us everything at once. They listened to our pain points and explained exactly how RetailWings would solve them. And they made it clear that migration and onboarding would be handled properly — no guessing, no hoping for the best.”
The Migration: Smooth Handoff, Zero Downtime
The RetailWings team handled the entire transition. Product catalogue with pricing and supplier information was migrated. Historical sales data was preserved. Staff was trained on-site before the switchover. And the entire process was executed over a weekend to minimize disruption to customer-facing operations.
Monday morning, The MakersHub opened with RetailWings running the entire business. For the first time, Adeyemi logged in and could see:
- Every product in inventory with live stock levels
- Total inventory value in real time
- Which items had been sold that morning and at what price
- Which products were fast-moving and which were sitting
- Which customers were buying (repeat vs. new)
- Which suppliers were delivering on time and which were slow
“The first morning on RetailWings, I opened the dashboard and felt something I hadn’t felt in months: clarity,” Adeyemi says. “I could finally see the business. Not a piece of it — all of it.”
Real-Time Inventory: No More Guessing
The first impact was immediate: inventory blindness ended. Every sale updates stock in real time. Adeyemi can now see exactly what’s on the shelf at any moment, from anywhere. No more staff calling to ask if a specific power drill is in stock — he checks the dashboard.
More importantly, he now knows his inventory value. For a retail business holding hundreds of SKUs across multiple categories, this visibility is transformative.
“Knowing my inventory value changed how I think about cash flow. Before, I didn’t know if I had ₦2 million or ₦5 million tied up in stock. Now I know exactly. I can make better decisions about when to reorder, when to run a promotion to move slow-moving items, and how much capital I actually need to keep the business running smoothly.”
AOAdeyemi OlalekanCEO, The MakersHub
Supply Chain Management: From Chaos to Control
Managing suppliers is complex for a business like The MakersHub. Different suppliers have different lead times, minimum order quantities, and reliability levels. Before RetailWings, this was a manual coordination nightmare — spreadsheets, phone calls, and hoping nothing fell through the cracks.
RetailWings’ purchasing module connected the entire supply chain. Purchase orders are created from low-stock alerts. Incoming shipments are tracked. Goods received are matched against orders. Supplier performance is recorded automatically.
The result? Reordering that used to take days now happens in hours. Stock levels are maintained without overstocking. And when an order is placed, Adeyemi knows exactly when it will arrive and what condition the goods will be in based on historical supplier data.
“Supply chain used to be a constant headache,” Adeyemi explains. “Now it’s almost invisible—in the best way possible. The system handles the coordination, I just monitor the data. If a supplier starts missing delivery dates, I see it immediately and can decide if we need to shift orders to someone more reliable.”
Transaction Tracking: Every Sale Tells a Story
Before RetailWings, a transaction was just a sale. Cash in, inventory out, end of story. There was no insight into who was buying what, patterns in customer behaviour, or which products were driving the business.
Now, every transaction is recorded with complete context: product, price, customer type, payment method, staff member, timestamp. Over weeks and months, this creates a rich dataset that reveals patterns Adeyemi couldn’t see before.
He discovered that woodworking supplies move faster during certain seasons. Professional contractors buy in bulk on specific days. Walk-in customers tend toward lower-priced items. Repeat customers have favourite product categories. Armed with this data, Adeyemi can make strategic decisions: which products to stock deeper, when to run promotions, how to structure pricing for different customer segments.
Profit Clarity: Finally Understanding the Money
The question Adeyemi wanted answered most was simple but crucial: “Where is my profit coming from?”
RetailWings answered it. Reports now show profit margins by product, by category, by supplier, and by time period. Adeyemi discovered that some of his highest-selling items had thin margins, while certain specialty tools had much higher profitability. He learned which suppliers were costing him more due to delivery delays and emergency reorders.
With this clarity, he’s begun optimizing the product mix. Phasing out low-margin items that move slowly. Investing more heavily in high-margin categories. Negotiating better terms with suppliers who deliver reliably.
“The profit reports are eye-opening. You think you know where your money comes from when you’re running things manually. You don’t. I thought power tools were my best category. Turns out specialty hand tools have better margins and a loyal customer base. That insight came directly from RetailWings data, and it’s changing how I stock the store.”
AOAdeyemi OlalekanCEO, The MakersHub
The Numbers: What Changed
| ✕ Before (Manual Operations) | ✓ After (RetailWings) |
|---|---|
| Unknown inventory value | Real-time inventory valuation |
| Profit unclear, by-guesswork accounting | Profit breakdown by product, category, supplier |
| Days to process a reorder | Hours to reorder with automated alerts |
| Supplier performance unknown | Automated tracking of delivery times & accuracy |
| Transactions recorded but not analyzed | 100% transaction tracking with pattern analysis |
| No customer behaviour insights | Visibility into repeat customers & preferences |
| 35% inventory waste (overstocking & shrink) | 35% reduction in waste through optimization |
| No data-driven decision making | Strategic decisions backed by real-time data |
Why This Matters for Artisan & Specialty Retail
The MakersHub story is specific to artisan equipment, but the lessons apply across specialty retail. Whether you sell tools, crafts supplies, fine goods, or niche products — the pain points are universal:
- Inventory complexity: Managing hundreds of SKUs with varying demand patterns requires real-time visibility, not spreadsheets
- Supply chain fragmentation: Multiple suppliers with different terms need coordinated tracking to avoid chaos
- Profit opacity: You can’t optimize what you can’t measure — profit clarity is essential to growth
- Customer insight: Understanding who buys what and when unlocks smarter stocking and pricing decisions
RetailWings was built specifically for retailers like The MakersHub. It’s not a generic e-commerce platform. It’s an integrated retail ERP that brings sales, inventory, purchasing, and accounting into one cohesive system.
Adeyemi’s advice to other retail business owners stuck in manual operations? “Do it now. Stop waiting for the perfect moment. Migration is smoother than you think, the learning curve is short, and the value appears immediately. I wasted months of growth potential delaying the switch. Don’t make that mistake.”
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