A feature-rich point-of-sale (POS) system is one of the most valuable tools for a retail business. This software can fill various needs, including tracking inventory, processing credit card payments and providing unique insight into your business&#;s operations. Accomplishing all these tasks with one system can help streamline your business operations and save money.
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While a good retail POS system can integrate multiple business areas into one interface, other components may also be vital. Before buying a POS system for your business, evaluate the features you need and those you can live without.
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There are many types of POS systems, and they&#;re not all created equal. Still, the best ones should have specific, essential features. Here are some of the top features to look for in a retail POS system:
To speed up checkout lines, a good retail POS system will display buttons for the most frequently purchased items or categories. This way, the cashier can touch a single button to ring up those items. If a customer wants to buy other items, there should be a quick and intuitive way to look up products.
When it&#;s easy for customers to pay you, they tend to buy more, and you&#;ll be more likely to earn repeat business. Select a POS system and payment processor that lets you accept all major credit and debit cards, as well as digital payments like Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay.
As a bonus, consider accepting PayPal and Venmo, depending on whether your customer base includes many young people. You may also want the ability to generate and accept gift cards and store credits.
Most POS systems accept several payment methods, but some take it to the next level by letting users pay with gift cards and split the payment among different payment methods. The more flexibility you offer your customers, the better.
Tip
Bottom lineEven the best retailers deal with returns. How you handle returns can help you avoid chargebacks and keep your customers. Choose a POS system that supports a customer-friendly refund-and-return policy.
Businesses can maximize sales and profits by maintaining both an in-store and online presence. Customers often want to buy online and then go into the store to pick up their items. They may also check retailer websites to see if something is in stock before visiting a location.
Your POS system should support an omnichannel experience and offer online sales management tools to increase your online presence and grow your business. These two features work hand in hand:
Your POS system should let you look up customers by name or other criteria and add their purchase history to their profile. Personalized marketing is a huge trend, and for good reason &#; consumers respond to personalization efforts. According to a McKinsey report, 71 percent of consumers want businesses to provide personalized service, and 76 percent are frustrated when personalization is lacking.
When your POS system has excellent customer management tools, it&#;s much easier to provide a high level of personalized attention based on purchase history. For example, if you see that a customer recently bought a barbeque grill, you can offer promotions on grill covers or barbeque tools. When you realize your customers have finished consumable items, or have old or obsolete items, you can send timely reminders that it&#;s time to repurchase, effortlessly boosting sales.
FYI
Did you knowPOS systems take the effort out of high-level customer personalization, making it easy to boost customer loyalty
Many retailers choose a mobile POS system to improve customer convenience and streamline checkout. Consumers hate waiting in line, and a mobile POS reduces this problem. Here are some examples of how retailers use mobile POS systems:
POS inventory management is a valuable feature that allows retailers to track inventory in real time. By integrating business orders with online and in-store purchases, business owners can track supply levels quickly and efficiently.
Real-time inventory tracking also helps retailers save money and avoid mistakes when ordering from suppliers. The sooner you upload products to your POS system, the quicker you can sell online and in person.
Did You Know?
Did you knowIn-store tablets improve the customer experience by shortening wait times. They also help retailers maximize space and manage inventory more effectively.In addition to managing and monitoring supplies and finances, some POS systems can help businesses track and manage worker productivity. Employee management tools help with loss prevention and create a more reliable, efficient workplace.
Employee management features include built-in time clocks, employee sales information and security management tools. Some systems allow business owners to set permissions for various employees based on role, store or individual. By managing a worker&#;s access to different business areas, owners can ensure their operations run smoothly and safely while avoiding micromanagement.
POS reporting tools, including cost and profit analysis reports, store comparison reports, and inventory reports, are crucial for retailers, allowing them to see sales data and determine the best (or top margins) and worst (or low margins) sellers in their product lines. Viewing hourly transactions and live product movement helps retailers adjust purchase orders appropriately.
Reporting tools also help you determine promotion effectiveness, top salespeople and customers, and customer buying trends. You can identify busy and slow days, times and seasons to optimize staffing levels. Many reporting tools let you apply various filters, such as a time frame, to get more precise data.
Credit card processing is a crucial feature to consider when choosing a POS system. You have two primary options:
Both POS system options are more convenient and accurate than using a separate system for credit card processing, where you ring up the customer&#;s purchases on the POS system and then manually enter the total on the credit card terminal.
When your retail POS system has credit card processing ability or compatibility, you can successfully and efficiently accept customer payments.
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Many of the best POS systems integrate with software that can improve customer management and support more efficient operations. Integrations help you easily adopt new functions, such as recording customer information, maintaining customer loyalty programs and offering targeted promotions.
Here are some examples of popular POS system software integrations:
FYI
Did you knowOther popular POS software integrations include e-commerce platforms, time and attendance software, accounting software , marketing services and payroll software.
Many POS systems offer support for multiple user accounts. Unless you&#;re a sole proprietor, you should choose a POS system with this functionality. Some POS vendors offer unlimited accounts for higher-level service tiers.
When each employee who rings up sales has a unique login, you can track their productivity, isolate problems and reward outstanding performers. This feature also lets you track sales for commissions and employee bonuses. Both can be useful if your company offers these compensation types. The other benefit of this multi-login system is discovering and stopping theft or errors.
Entering product information is the most time-consuming part of setting up a POS system. Some POS systems allow you to import all your product information at once, a process known as bulk-product imports.
Bulk-product imports are essential if you sell a wide variety of products or your offerings change frequently. This way, you won&#;t have to upload products manually, making product importing an inefficient process if you sell more than a few items.
If you have multiple versions of a product, such as different options, colors or sizes, your POS system should be able to distinguish between them. That way, you&#;ll have better data when it comes to reordering because you know what&#;s selling on a granular level.
Additionally, bundling products that are frequently purchased together speeds checkout, increases sale revenue and allows you to offer customers discounts on bulk purchases.
Promotions and discounts are valuable sales tools in specific instances, including the following:
If your POS system readily accepts promotions, promo codes and discounts, you&#;ll have greater flexibility in measuring your retail marketing strategies.
Did You Know?
Did you knowAside from promotions and discounts, you can increase sales for your small business by asking for customer feedback, offering free trials, advertising on social media and staying consistent with marketing
Your new retail store may not need all the POS system bells and whistles available. However, as your business expands, you&#;ll need a POS system that can grow with you. A scalable POS system helps you avoid moving your information to an entirely new platform when you open a new business location or ramp up your growth.
Jean Iennaco, director of operations for Over the Top Cake Supplies in San Antonio, said her company now has multiple corporate stores and franchise locations. While she initially didn&#;t need a POS system that supported multiple locations, that feature became critical as her company grew. Iennaco said her Revel POS system has been great for managing the expansion.
&#;We initially had another POS system, which wasn&#;t compatible for multiple-location use, so we switched to Revel, which is compatible,&#; Iennaco explained. &#;We have four locations. I can be anywhere and help them out if there are issues. For example, I can check on locations by going into reporting and offering advice on ways to increase sales for the month. It&#;s user-friendly and convenient for having multiple locations.&#;
If Iennaco had initially used scalable software like Revel, she wouldn&#;t have had to go through the trouble of switching systems.
POS software has become a must even for the smallest single-shop retailers. The retailer gains some positive reputation and also saves on a lot of efforts and time managing the stock and sales using the software. There are many POS software available in the market and here&#;s a guide to choosing the one with 5 of the most important features any POS software must have. These are the basic requirements considering how most of the retails generally work. If your company has got any other specific way of running or retailing, you can talk to your software provider who&#;s closest to what you are doing and ask for customization to suit your requirements.
That&#;s the basic requirement for any POS software. It must help you bill the products easily and also update the inventory and accounting modules if those are available. POS software usually allows the user to integrate with a barcode scanner that scans the barcode attached to the product and fetches the details including the price from the software&#;s database. It also will have a printer attached using which the retailer prints out the retail invoice and hands it over to the buyer. If you are doing online sales, make sure you are able to print out the required invoice formats that help you ship the product.
Among the most important aspects of POS software after billing is inventory management. A good inventory system that comes with your POS makes the POS more reliable and usable. You can check the inventory of the items in demand in real-time, analyze the sales over a period of time and plan your purchases accordingly. You can also get various analytics on what sells more to which locations or during a particular season and the like. Some POS also come with integrated purchase systems that send automatic order emails to the respective suppliers through the software.
CRM or Customer Relations Management is an important aspect of all retail businesses. Since you are dealing with your customers directly, if you are able to take good care of your frequent customers, they will remain your loyal customers for longer periods and also bring in more referrals with their happy reviews. You can also offer special discounts or schemes to regular customers which will make them happier. You can use the data for sending special mailers and newsletters to your esteemed customers informing them of latest product additions and new store premises opening.
Any digital data is useful when you can draw meaningful reports and analytics from them. Real-time sales data and accounting reports or profitability reports are the best ways to make sure you stay on the right track. Any downward trends should be alerted immediately which you can tackle immediately by analyzing the reasons and taking corrective actions. Analytical reports such as items that sell more, mapping the customer or locations to the sales and similar other data that can help you concentrate more on the weaker locations or sections to improve your position there can be a great help to boost your sales.
Mobility matters these days, as people prefer to buy on the go. Most of the people prefer to place their orders while they are traveling by bus or train which you should be able to fulfill on the go too. Time matters a lot and people do not have time to wait for order confirmation. If you have the POS app on your mobile, you can process the orders as and when you receive them which make your customer happier and satisfied. Even if you are out of town, your mobile POS app will make sure your orders can be processed from anywhere at any time.
These are just the basic requirements. Competitive POS software vendors are coming up with content management and many other marketing techniques integrated into the POS software making it a full-fledged retail solution. Some POS software also has Employee Management integrated for the retailers with many employees and multiple locations. Catering to global retailing solutions is what many of the POS vendors are aiming for currently since most of the retailers are venturing into e-commerce solutions to reach out to more customers worldwide. Finally, what&#;s right for you? Consider your audience and consider your retail needs. This can help you narrow in on the right POS for your unique business.
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