The area where business is transacted is key in most businesses. In a retail or face to face environment the point of sale (POS) is where you need to maximize the transaction; not just in terms of concluding the sale, but in recording customer data that can be used to build a relationship with them and provide valuable reporting information.
Modern and flexible POS systems enable sales to be transacted quickly; they can facilitate the accurate recording of what was sold so ensuring accurate, real time stock records show at all times and valuable intelligence can be built regarding your stock, customers and business generally.
Why you should offer modern POS facilities
A business needs accurate data both to monitor its success or otherwise ‘in real time’ and also to plan and work towards growth. A POS system can ensure you achieve full data capture to provide your business with the best intelligence possible.
Many specific business resources – whether concerning tech, finance or information websites geared for the smaller businesses – would agree that accurate and meaningful data is a key weapon at a business’s disposal.
More specifically POS provides:
1. Swift sales from multiple locations
Even the most basic POS system will enable you to transact sales quickly and from various locations so maximizing business opportunities; consider how flexible you can be knowing that you can sell ‘out in the field’ at locations such as exhibitions, product fairs, roadshows and more.
In busy environments, being able to conclude a sale quickly is a huge help in order to maximize opportunities.
2. Real time sales information
You can get a snapshot of how sales are doing generally, which products are moving quickest, and also gather sales intelligence you can review later based on daily, weekly, monthly or other time frames.
Information such as what sells, when it sells, which locations it sells from and more is possible from state-of-the-art POS systems. This is invaluable so as to control inventory; for example, ensuring good supplies of the pink widget are available at location X because that’s where most sales are coming from.
3. Saving money
You can save money through providing more automation of processes. POS systems will save money by drastically reducing human error. For example, automatic adjusting of stock levels as items are sold prevents the time-consuming task of manual counting and thus potential for error.
4. Instant stock information
There’s nothing worse than losing business because stock levels are low, so POS – because it updates stock information instantly sales are made – can ensure you keep stock levels where they need to be and don’t over-stock with slower selling lines.
You can easily set ‘alarms’ to flag up in good time when an item needs re-ordering or replenishing.
5. Monitor sales by location, person or team
Knowing what locations are producing the sales is golden information to have, and it helps to monitor who is selling what and where they are. Does changing personnel alter sales volume in a location? Your POS system will be able to tell you.
6. Maximize repeat sales
Many retail businesses lose out considerably on repeat sales, so denying themselves a key source of relatively cheap-to-acquire business when compared to spending advertising dollars on attracting new customers.
POS can help improve loyalty to your business or brand by building up a picture of your customers and what they buy, how much, when and other useful intelligence. Have you noticed how stores, especially supermarkets, know what you buy and then offer deals and incentives based on this?
That’s their POS and other tracking methods in action – and you can do likewise to make the most of your existing customers by tailoring your marketing to their buying habits and preferences.
For example, you could target certain customers – such as larger spenders for example – with a personalized offer or other incentive based on a product they buy a lot of. Maybe you could design some kind of loyalty program?
The options are endless with efficient POS customer tracking, and you stand to increase profits by selling more to your existing customer base rather than devoting all your effort to chasing new ones.
A key investment
The plethora of advantages make POS a sound investment for your business; the beauty of a modern system is it can grow with you – perhaps a smaller, less fully featured set up would suit initially but extra facilities can be added as you grow.
