Case Study: The Paper Store achieves uninterrupted holiday transactions and 20% network cost savings with Fortinet Secure SD-WAN and SD-Branch

Keeping Holiday Cash Registers Humming Across Expanding Store Footprint With Fortinet Secure SD-WAN and SD-Branch Solutions

The Paper Store, a family‑owned specialty gift retailer with nearly 90 stores and 4,000 employees across six states, faced growing pains as rapid store openings exposed a fragmented, third‑party‑managed network that was costly, difficult to maintain, and vulnerable to outages that could stop in‑store transactions and complicate PCI compliance. The seven‑person IT team needed a more resilient, centrally managed architecture to support peak sales seasons and expansion.

The company consolidated networking and security into a Fortinet SD‑Branch and Secure SD‑WAN stack (FortiGate NGFW, FortiExtender, FortiSwitch, FortiAP, FortiManager/Analyzer, etc.), eliminating dedicated VoIP routers and third‑party monitoring. The rollout increased WAN bandwidth sixfold, reduced outages dramatically (e.g., one store went from ~200 outages/month to five/year), enabled stores to stay online during holiday circuit failures, sped new‑store deployments, and delivered about 20% savings in annual network management and monitoring costs.

The Paper Store

Ken Guild

IT Systems Security Manager