As a retailer, you probably waste most of your time trying to shore up sales. From managing stock to specific marketing efforts and so on, most of your efforts are generally focused on generating revenues and keeping customers always coming to your doors.
Regardless of whether you’re trying to set up your first POS, upgrade your present system, or require a mobile alternative for occasional in-person sales, selecting the most appropriate POS is integral to your overall business success.
With numerous POS models and options, making a perfect choice can be an overwhelming task for the ordinary retailer. However, if you consider the benefits and drawbacks of each system, you’ll limit your options to meet your perfect requirements.
To help you get the perfect POS for your business, here are 5 things to consider when doing your research.
Inventory management
Whenever you sell products, it’s easy to run short of stock especially for common products or widely sought-after items. Tracking inventory personally by hand is a very difficult and stressful process — thankfully, a lot of POS systems offer inventory management features to automate this process. The best systems can help you keep track of your stock with every transaction, return, and exchange. Hence, you are able to spend your time and effort on more crucial areas of your business.
Customer management
It’s not enough to just keep track of your inventory — a really good POS should be of assistance to you in managing your customers at the same time. Numerous POS options create customer profiles so retailers can go through their buying history and hold another vital customer information. This is especially helpful if you manage service-based businesses; for example, a salon POS can help you manage appointments in the day, as well as keep track of your loyal customers should you want to keep track of their transactions.
Returns and exchanges
Returns or exchanges ought to be an easy task with your point of sale system. If you waste a lot of time wrestling with your current POS each time a customer brings back an item, then it’s time to look at other options.
Hardware Needs
Though we’ve been talking about the type of software features that good POS systems include, we can’t ignore the hardware. When narrowing down your system options, take into account your needs with regards to the physical system you’ll use for transactions. For payments mainly processed on the move, retailers can make use of barcode scanners and tablet linked to a cloud-based POS system. This flexible mobile version of a POS will work best for occasional in-person sellers who hawk their goods at farmer’s markets and other shared spaces. At the same time, a barcode scanner that operates via bluetooth can be used portably around a wider area whilst connected to the inventory system, this allows vendors to organise items for sale in a variety of locations, which can save time when compared to being tied to a fixed location to scan items and take payment. More traditional brick-and-mortar merchants might need additional accessories like multiple payments terminals, receipt printers, and barcode scanners, as traditional stores carry the expectation to have a variety of payment methods and checkout systems for customers.
Take some time to look at where your business will be in the future. Are you having prospects growing your business? Then get a POS system that will grow as your business does.
Taking payments anywhere
As previously mentioned, have a flexible POS is a significant feature for most retailers, even if you have a brick-and-mortar retail store, how would you get potential customer information and process transactions while showing off your products at a trade show?
Regardless of your retail niche, find a POS system that lets you take payments anywhere and anytime then you’ll never miss a chance for a sale.