Retail · St. Petersburg, FL · 5 Locations

Retail Chain Wi-Fi Overhaul

Replaced 5 different consumer router setups with cloud-managed enterprise access points. POS downtime eliminated, guest Wi-Fi now captures customer emails, one dashboard manages everything.

1 Week

Full deployment time

$8,000/yr

Recovered lost sales

45

Staff & devices connected

The Challenge

A growing retail chain with 5 locations across Pinellas County had outgrown their patchwork network:

  • Each store had a different consumer router (Netgear, Asus, TP-Link, Eero, Spectrum gateway)
  • POS systems randomly lost connection — 3-4 incidents per month per location
  • Inventory scanners dropped Wi-Fi in back rooms and loading docks
  • No guest Wi-Fi for customers — missed marketing opportunity
  • No central visibility — issues discovered only when store managers called
  • Firmware updates never applied — security vulnerabilities

The Operations Director estimated $8,000/year in lost sales from POS downtime alone. They needed a standardized, enterprise-grade solution with central management.

Our Solution

1

Site Surveys & Design (Week 1)

Performed RF surveys at all 5 locations. Designed AP placement for full coverage including back rooms, loading docks, and outdoor curbside pickup areas. Spec'd Ubiquiti UniFi Enterprise APs.

2

Core Infrastructure (Days 2-3)

Installed PoE+ switches at each location, ran CAT6a to AP mounting points, configured VLANs: Management (VLAN 10), POS (VLAN 20), Staff (VLAN 30), Guest (VLAN 40). Connected to UniFi Cloud Gateway.

3

AP Deployment & Tuning (Days 4-5)

Mounted 22 access points (4-5 per location). Tuned transmit power, enabled band steering, airtime fairness, and minimum RSSI. Configured fast roaming (802.11r) for seamless handoff between APs.

4

SSID & Policy Configuration

POS: WPA3-Enterprise with RADIUS, VLAN 20, bandwidth priority. Staff: WPA3-Personal, VLAN 30. Guest: Captive portal with email capture, VLAN 40, rate-limited, content-filtered. All managed from single UniFi Cloud dashboard.

5

Testing, Training & Handoff

Validated POS transactions, scanner roaming, guest portal flow. Trained store managers on dashboard basics. Configured alerts: AP offline, high client count, channel interference, firmware available.

Business Impact

  • POS downtime: 3-4/month → 0

    Zero register outages in 8 months since deployment. Peak holiday season ran flawlessly.

  • Proactive issue detection

    Dashboard alerts caught 2 failing PoE ports and 1 ISP outage before stores noticed. Remote fixes in minutes, not hours.

  • Guest Wi-Fi = 340 emails/month

    Captive portal captures customer emails for marketing. 18% open rate on promotional campaigns.

  • Single pane of glass

    Operations Director sees all 5 locations' health, client counts, and firmware status in one view.

  • Future-ready for expansion

    Adding a 6th location? Same template, deployed in 4 hours. Consistent config, consistent security.

“Our registers don't go down anymore. That alone was worth the investment. Now I can see the whole network from my phone and fix things before the store managers even call me.”
— Operations Director

Multi-Location Network FAQ

For 3-10 locations, we typically complete the project in 1-2 weeks. We stage deployments to minimize disruption — often working after hours or during slow periods. Each location takes 4-6 hours.
Yes. We coordinate with Spectrum, Frontier, Verizon, and others. We'll handle the circuit upgrades, modem swaps, and static IP requests so you don't have to.
Our cloud-managed platform supports per-site policies. One location can have different VLANs, SSIDs, or bandwidth limits while still being managed from the same dashboard.

Multiple locations? Let's standardize.

We'll survey your sites and give you a fixed-price proposal with a single dashboard for everything.

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