Wavestore and Axis custom surveillance system

Founded in 1985, SuperGroup designs and sells a wide range of premium men’s and women’s clothing under its flagship brand, Superdry. It operates a multi-channel business through a combination of Superdry standalone stores, Superdry concessions, e-Commerce and its UK and international wholesale operations and offers an international brand proposition targeted at discerning customers who are looking for stylish clothing that is uniquely designed and well made.

Situation

With over 100 UK and European standalone stores and over a further 250 UK and international concessions, franchised and licenced stores, SuperGroup required a modern, feature-rich surveillance system that was simple, scalable and aesthetically pleasing.

Atul Rajput, regional director, northern Europe at Axis Communications explained: “From a security perspective, SuperGroup needed a state-of-the-art surveillance system that would provide greater coverage of the shop floor and high-risk areas. It also needed high-definition image quality and network video capability for better identification of offenders. However, any system had to be inconspicuous and aesthetically pleasing to the strict design and layout of the stores that is governed by the brand.”

Darren Conway, health and safety and loss prevention manager at SuperGroup added: “We have a very specific aesthetic in all our stores, characterised by dynamic low-level lighting, reflective surfaces and LED signage. We’ve found that a lot of cameras lose image detail in these conditions.”

“Whenever we’ve presented Axis and Wavestore with a problem, they’ve come back with an almost immediate solution.”

Darren Conway, Health and Safety and Loss Prevention Manager at SuperGroup

Solution

Axis and Wavestore teamed up to replace SuperGroup’s outdated legacy video surveillance systems with a state-of-the-art solution in order to improve safety and security across its European store network.

Axis designed a custom surveillance solution which met all SuperGroup’s requirements and fitted in perfectly with its unique store design. AXIS M30 and AXIS P33 series ultra-compact fixed dome cameras were chosen for the SuperGroup UK installation due to their crystal-clear picture quality and broad field of view, utilising Axis’ unique Corridor Format display.

Success

“With our old system, we had to flood each store with around 30 analogue cameras. In such a confined space, they really detracted from the look of the store fit-out and we still had an unacceptable number of blind spots. With Axis cameras we’ve now reduced the number of cameras in our stores to between 6 and 12, which cover the entire store in perfect HDTV quality,” said Darren Conway.

“Not only have we been able to reduce the camera count at each store by between 60 - 80%, feedback from our store managers has been fantastic with incident identification now up to 100%.”

Following the successful installations in six of SuperGroup’s UK stores, there are plans to install the new system in another 30 stores over the coming year. Darren concluded: “We’ve been very impressed with the system so far and are about to try some more advanced functionality when we install the system into our next new store opening.

“Whenever we’ve presented Axis and Wavestore with a problem, they’ve come back with an almost immediate solution. At every stage of the installation, Axis’ support and customer service has been second to none.”

Justin Wheatley, director of engineering at Wavestore said, “This was a great project to work on and provided us with an opportunity to work in harmony with Axis to deliver the best solution for the client.”