As the old saying goes, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. The first impression given to the potential buyer will determine if the store-owner has gained a client for life or lost a potential long-term buyer. Recent studies state that most in-store purchase decisions are made in the store at the time of purchase; it doesn’t take a genius to figure that out. Putting more emphasis on the shop’s design, shopping environment, in-store promotions; will increase the influence impulse or mood purchasing.
There are so many qualities that you need to have if you want to run a successful retail business. You need to make sure that you’re in a position to make your store a success. In these tough economic times, many businesses are struggling to make it or to stay afloat. You need to have the right place, timing, business sense and tools to succeed. One of the tools that any retailer need are POS systems. I know because I own a medium sized grocery and having a POS system has greatly increased the productivity, efficiency and made the job of managing the store easier.
What are POS systems? Point of sale refers to the software solution that is used at the point of purchase by the sales clerk. It allows the store to have a simple checking process. POS systems usually include a computer, monitor, cash drawer, receipt printer, customer display, a barcode scanner and a debit/credit card reader. The system, particularly the software is easy to use and understand. The POS software speeds up the process by calculating sales and change and adding in the sales tax. It has greatly increased the efficiency of our store and we can spend more time on the floor servicing to customers and it made the customers feel that they are important and well cared for.
The POS systems record each transaction and helps manage the inventory. Updates allow accurate records of sales to be pulled out at anytime of the day. Transactions are time stamped that help products sold together to be identified. It’s really handy and gives me useful information to keep tabs of our sales. Taking inventory is one of the most time - consuming and labor intensive task every storeowner face and one of the most crucial. Having too much stock or too little of it is very costly. Although having a POS system track my store’s inventory, it does not substitute for a physical inventory count but it reduces the number of times each year I have to conduct this time consuming task. Good thing I have wireless portable scanner programmed to the system that saves me hours and footsteps in the process. Really nice.
POS systems have the ability to provide immediate and accurate assessment of my inventory. Each time an item is sold, the item is immediately subtracted from the inventory list. It lets me know when a given item or products are in its reorder point. . As a retailer, I don’t want my sales unrecorded; or my inventory doesn’t match the tallies and spending time correcting mistakes. The system is a good investment because it solves many operational tasks and record keeping headaches. This type of system was only available to major retail stores and thankfully, it’s now readily available to small and medium businesses. Some say that most point of sale software and systems are just sophisticated cash registers, which I say is true but as a user of this system, I can say that its more than just a sophisticated cash register. POS systems are a complete solution.
Neil Adams is a father to three boys, a hardworking funny man that enjoys Conan O’Brien, Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell and Jack Black. Neil has been in the retail business for 10 years now and thankful that POS systems were invented.
