Posts Tagged ‘cash register’

Are you considering upgrading your cash register to a point of sale program? Or are you opening up a new retail business and trying to decide if a point of sale program is for you?

Investing in a high quality point of sale program can play an important part in the success of your retail business. Here are five reasons you should consider investing in a point of sale program:

(1) Point of Sale Programs Improve Your Customer Experience

A high quality point of sale program can drastically improve the customer experience at your retail store.  Firstly, POS programs can speed up the time it takes for a clerk to complete a transaction through the use of bar-code scanners and digital weight scales.  A bar code scanner can automatically scan in the items a customer is purchasing, so that the clerk doesn’t have to manually type in each item into the till, preventing human error and tracking transaction with much more detail.

The clerk can also scan in coupons with bar codes on them, and even a customer membership card to track the customer.Secondly, point of sale programs can improve the customer experience before the transaction happens as well.  For example, if a customer walks in and inquires about an item they are looking to purchase, the clerk can instantly pull up a real-time inventory report to not only check if the item is available at that location, but also look up inventory from other locations as well.  Special discounts, promotions, customer tracking and store returns can also be greatly improved through the use of a POS software program.

(2) Point of Sale Programs Improve Your Inventory Tracking

As a retail business owner, one of the biggest monetary investments you’ll make will be in your inventory.  Some retailers have millions of dollars of inventory, and a point of sale program can greatly increase the accuracy of your inventory tracking practices.  POS programs can allow you to automatically tag your inventory items with bar code labels, allowing you to identify each item in your inventory easily and quickly with a simple bar code scanner.

Manually counting inventory can be a tedious task, but with point of sale programs the process can be greatly sped up and made more accurate by utilizing inventory count scanners that automatically count your inventory through the use of bar codes.  Faster and more frequent inventory counts and more accurate inventory tracking at the till can significantly reduce the amount of inventory theft or “shrinkage” your business experiences.  Without accurate inventory tracking, a lot of retail business owners who still use cash registers don’t even know they have missing inventory until months after it has been stolen.

(3) Point of Sale Programs Improve Your Purchasing Decisions

Point of sale programs can also help you to track your transactions with your vendors.  The software can help you to identify inventory items that are running low on stock and suggest specific items to add to purchase orders.  Tracking purchase orders for each vendor also allows you to identify which inventory was purchased from which vendor at which time.  This can be a huge time saver for warranty purposes or for vendor returns.

Running specific inventory sales reports can also help you to identify both top selling items and also poor selling items so that you can make better purchasing decisions when buying inventory from vendors.  Instead of purchasing products that the vendors are trying to get rid of themselves (which can often be stagnant items they can’t even sell) you can make decisions based on what is already selling well in your stores.  This can save you tens of thousands of dollars in purchasing the wrong inventory items that aren’t selling well in your stores.

(4) Point of Sale Programs Improve Your Business Awareness

Through the use of hundreds of specialized and customized reports, you can keep a finger on the pulse of your business in real time.  Instead of waiting for an accounting firm to “crunch” the numbers for your business months after anything can be done, you can keep track of your business sales and numbers on a weekly or even daily basis.  Sales reports, inventory tracking reports, clerk sales reports and hundreds of others can be run at any time to give you real-time snapshots of where you’re business is at.

If you hire a new clerk or a new manager, you can track your sales or any other business metric in real time any time you want.  This allows you to make better up to the minute, day-to-day decisions you wouldn’t otherwise be able to make.

(5) Point of Sale Programs Improve Your Bottom Line

Perhaps more than an other investment you can make in your retail business, a high quality POS program can provide you with a high return on investment by improving the profitability of your business.  Being able to serve your customers faster and more efficiently, coupled with being able to track and manage your inventory more accurately and being able to run specialized reports to keep an eye on your business can all work synergistically to improve your bottom line.

The initial investment in a POS program can usually be offset almost immediately in the amount of time saved by clerks at the till running transactions, and the amount of time saved managing inventory.  Human labor is a big cost to retail businesses, so every process and task that can be automated or made more efficient through the use of point of sale software and hardware can be a big savings to your business.

AmberPOS – Point of Sale Software

AmberPOS is a top of the line point of sale program developed from scratch with the retail business owner in mind.  For over 15 years we’ve worked with retail business owners across North America to develop and customize a POS software which delivers unsurpassed quality and performance to our customers.  We pride ourselves in providing top level customer service, support and training during and after your software installation.

By choosing AmberPOS as your Point of Sale software provider you’ll never be left alone without support or training like some of the “off the shelf” programs which may seem cheaper based on their initial price tag, but which end up costing you much more later on in wasted time, additional labor costs and leave you frustrated and unable to run your business properly.

Contact us today for a free, no obligation consultation and demo with one of our Point of Sale specialists by visiting this page or by calling us at 778-285-2855.