Fixed Point of Sale for Retail Stores
Mobile Point of Sale & Line Busting App
Dashboard and Analytics Mobile App
Free Inventory Management App
Full Service Inventory Management App
Order Management Solution
House Accounts and Invoicing
Premium Suites Catering & Pre Order Management
Centralized Management Platform
Workforce Empowerment App
Hospitality Point of Sale App
E-Commerce Solution Platform
Table Mangement for Restaurants via Mobile or Tablet
Kitchen Display System
Seamless Sales Across All Channels
Elevating Sports & Entertainment Transactions Effortlessly
Streamlining Retail Transactions for Seamless Shopping
Optimizing Transactions for Vibrant Festival Experiences
Transforming Hospitality & Suite Service Management
Smart Inventory Management with RFID
Building Relationships, Rewarding Loyal Customers
Insights-Driven Decisions for Business Growth
Quickbooks desktop alternatives are more essential as businesses evolve. While QuickBooks Desktop has long been a trusted tool for accounting, many companies now seek flexible, cloud-based solutions that provide greater accessibility and collaboration options. With the growing trend towards remote work, cloud accounting software enables teams to access financial data securely from anywhere, eliminating the need for local installations and maintenance. Additionally, some businesses find that QuickBooks Desktop lacks industry-specific features or scalability options as they grow, leading them to explore other platforms that offer specialized functionalities.Alternative accounting software can also provide a more budget-friendly option for small businesses or freelancers who need streamlined features without the higher costs. Consequently, there’s a strong demand for QuickBooks Desktop alternatives that offer robust, scalable, and mobile-friendly accounting solutions to meet today’s dynamic business needs. retailcloud’s ZeroPOS is an all in one point of sale software that has been designed with today’s retailers in mind. Conduct and manage all aspects of your business with the one, easy to use system. retailcloud gives you less to worry about and more time to spend growing your business.
-Processor-agnostic Solution with Dual Pricing Capability
-Multiple Support Channels i.e. Phone, Chat and Email
-Intuitive Cashier Experience
-Multiple Tender Options and Tap Pay
-Robust Inventory Management
-Powerful CRM with In-house Loyalty and Gift Cards
-Dynamic Employee Management
-Muli-location Capabilities
-Insightful Reporting
-Mobile App and Clienteling Toolkit
-Cloud-based Back Office with Real-time Updates
ZeroPOS, a cloud based pos system, is a full suite of management tools that streamlines payment processing, inventory management, and other business operations. Integration to QuickBooks Online allows you to manage your finances with ease.
ZeroPOS pushes all data to QuickBooks Online as transactions are processed throughout the day. This allows you to view sales activity in QuickBooks and effectively gauge your business’ performance based on accurate financial reconciliation.
With ZeroPOS you have a full suite of inventory management in one system. From purchase orders, to receiving, selling and adjusting, you can track where your inventory is at all times. Integrated with QuickBooks Online, you can make more informed decisions with your inventory management and increase profits.
Tracking your profits and losses, as well as your invoices and house accounts has never been easier with ZeroPOS and QuickBooks. Streamline your accounting activities and record-keeping!
retailcloud’s integration with QuickBooks Online makes it the ideal cloud POS solution for those who have worked with QuickBooks Desktop POS. As QuickBooks moves to discontinue their POS, retailcloud is proud to offer a turnkey solution that allows merchants to gain sales reporting, simplify inventory management, and accurately track income and expenses: allowing them to take advantage of the accounting and financial management tools in QuickBooks Online.
Preference Marketing is a very effective strategy to drive engagement and increase lifetime value with all of your customers. When a business markets specific products and promotions to specific customers based on their purchase history, loyalty, and more, a customer is more likely to make a purchase. And they will come back for more by being shown products according to their taste and liking.
retailcloud CRM allows you to manage your customers and makes it very easy to market to them by keeping records of the personal information and purchase history. And with marketing campaigns, you can communicate with your customers more effectively by notifying them about new products, promotions, and more!
With the CRM builder, you can create profiles with relevant personal information to track sales and purchase history by customer, and associate them within a frequency-based category or static group.
Learn about your customers: Think…Purchase History, Loyalty History, and Segments, Groups, or Clubs!
Being able to categorize your customers can give you a better understanding of their preferences and shopping habits so that you can deliver a more personalized shopping experience to them.
Text message marketing is a great alternative to some of the more traditional forms of digital marketing. It’s a seamless way to engage and connect with your customers through the device most of us are on for hours each day.
Now with all the insightful customer data you have at your fingertips, you can engage with your customers on a personal level and successfully connect with them to encourage more purchases and drive their interest in your business. When you notify your customers about products or prices they like, they will want to take advantage of them!
Think about their PREFERENCES…
-Frequently purchased items
-Purchase value
-Purchase volume
Think about how you want to engage and connect with your customers…
-Email and SMS marketing
-Products, promotions, etc.
-Customer groups, clubs, designations
Preference marketing increases customer lifetime value and profits. By sending personalized offers, you provide the most relevant promotions to your customers, driving sales and increasing revenue. Using retailcloud CRM and marketing campaigns with SMS messaging, you have full control over your business from your POS!
Loyalty marketing is a strategic approach businesses use to foster customer loyalty by rewarding and incentivizing repeat purchases or engagements. The goal is to build long-term relationships with customers, encouraging them to prefer a brand over competitors.
Why are brands still investing in the age-old loyalty strategy? Because 3.3 billion is a staggering number, which is only escalating and every brand knows a retained customer is more valuable than an acquired one. The strategy may be decades old, but the dynamics of loyalty programs are periodically constantly evolving to appeal to the tastes of the newer audiences, cater to the needs of the hour and cope with ever-increasing competition. In order to increase loyalty programs and overall consumer retention, companies have taken to expanding their rewards programs to incorporate social and behavioral actions while also attempting to provide their customers with a more personalized experience.
Customer retention programs are a great way to reward your customers for their loyalty and frequent engagement with your brand. Let’s be honest, we as customers generally prefer to do business with people that are happy, responsive and most importantly feel valued. A great customer loyalty program adds value by distinguishing your brand from other competitors. It can also accelerate the loyalty life cycle.
Loyalty Marketing in retailcloud CRM is a solution that helps merchants give the right offer to their customers, at the right time and in the right way. This helps merchants attract new customers, retain existing customers and reactivate dormant ones. With Loyalty Marketing, you will have a 360° view of your customers and their profiles, purchasing history and even behaviors.
Through the Loyalty Marketing feature, we aim to help businesses build relationships with their customers and encourage customer participation. By encouraging your customers to engage with your brand through sharing content, making referrals and spreading the word about your business, you can create a strong base of dedicated advocates that will be more likely to continue engaging with your brand throughout their whole journey with you. Loyalty Marketing Programs are designed to engage customers with a points based program that they can use to exchange for freebies and perks. Including things like: Exchanging points for cashback, discounts, merchandise, product discounts or exclusive offers.
At retailcloud we offer a complete text messaging service that allows you to send personalized, targeted messages to your customers according to the specific goals for each program. We handle everything from customer opt-in/out, to sending out texts, keeping track of unsubscribes and maintaining your lists. We also do data mining and analysis on our customers from text message campaigns so that you can accurately measure the effectiveness of your campaigns based on what segments respond best.
Loyalty marketing has been proven to positively impact businesses in every industry, as it impacts all key metrics such as customer retention, expansion, and profit margins. By creating a comprehensive loyalty program that allows for modern marketing techniques, you can turn your customers into advocates for your brand. Since modern consumers trust peers over advertising, fostering loyal customers who will then speak out on your behalf is simply a smart business move.
Loyalty is a powerful business strategy, but only if you have the right tools to drive it. At retailcloud, we offer a loyalty marketing platform that enables your team to create and deploy smart loyalty plans to maximize customer retention and increase sales. And our solutions can be deployed within minutes, and will contain all the support you need. Whether you’re looking to enhance your current program or launch your company’s first loyalty initiative, let us help!
(If you would like to schedule a live demo with a sales engineer from retailcloud, you may do so here: https://schedule.retailcloud.com/#/customer/retailcloudappointments)
Upselling and cross-selling are some marketing trends businesses use to boost their revenue. For small businesses, strategies are crucial to improving their sales. However, there are several negative comments about cross-selling and upselling, such as pushy salespeople, irrelevant sales pitches, and unethical sales strategies. In reality, as a salesperson, it is our job to understand if the additional products can help our clients. Then, present it to them so they can see the value in adding to their purchase.
To help you boost your revenue and increase UPT, it is important to use marketing strategies, such as upselling and cross-selling. But how would you know when to apply them? Would you be able to increase your revenue through these strategies? Let’s find out more about upselling and cross-selling and the effective ways to use them.
Cross-selling means suggesting a product relevant to the one the client is having. For instance, a shopper is buying a purse, and you recommend a matching wallet. Meanwhile, upselling means offering a version of the product that is more expensive, thinking that the shopper wants to upgrade the item. If done correctly, both strategies can increase your sales while helping customers at the same time.
When it comes to upselling and cross-selling, doing it right and at the right place and time are the keys. If you upsell a product or service that is not relevant or you are selling in a pushy manner, you are more likely to fail in converting the customer or, worse, lose the original sale.
As a salesperson, your objective is to increase the revenue, regardless of how you do it. In upselling and cross-selling, it is vital that you have a strategy for a successful sale.
For a successful upsell and cross-sell in retail, here are some tactics that can help you.
If you are trying to persuade customers to buy more items or upgrade their products, it is apparent that you want to gain more benefits for your business. But you have to keep in mind that customers are unsure whether not or to make a bigger purchase if they don’t think they will benefit from the deal.
This means, aside from your own profit, you also have to give value to customers to persuade them to buy more.
If you think that your deal will bring value to you and your customers, you have to show all the benefits your customer can get. This will convince your customer to buy a related item or upgrade products.
Some of the benefits you can offer your customers are a discount voucher, a loyal card, an extended warranty, or reward points.
Consider the Rule of 3
When upselling, find out if you can apply the “Rule of 3”. This means providing the shopper with three options for their items, and this is more likely to boost their order’s value.
These options are:
The requested product is an item the shopper is looking for. An alternative product is an item that is a little better with a higher cost.
And lastly, the dream product is considered the best option with much better quality and highest cost among the three choices.
Among the three products, the dream product is most likely to be bought by shoppers. Giving your customers three choices allows them to choose.
This method is often used in upselling.
Once you have mastered the technique of upselling and cross-selling, this can definitely boost the revenue of your business. This will encourage your customers to buy more products or expensive items.
And now, purchasing an item does not only happen in physical stores. Customers also buy products and services online on which they can pay for the item in some ways, such as card payments or electronic payments.
As a salesperson, it is crucial that you have knowledge about point of sale (POS) and how this works.
Point of sale or POS is where a customer pays for the goods and services he gets. It is also an essential focus for salespeople as customers tend to purchase high-margin products at these strategic locations.
When a customer selects items from stands or checks out online, they are at the point of sale. Using efficient point of sale lending software helps the business to make more sales.
A POS lending software allows offering loans at the point of purchase to allow customers to purchase products or services themselves. Just like consumer lending, POS financing works with credit cards, installment loans, and in-store loyalty cards.
People consider taking a POS loan when purchasing an item that they cannot afford, such as cars, furniture, or kitchen appliances. Thanks to the development of technology, POS financing has developed recently and made online lending possible.
The market provides instant mobile and online loan opportunities supported with clear repayment terms before taking out loans. This allows borrowers to take out loans from their smartphones at the point of sale of any retailed immediately and pay for the items.
And this has become the most preferred POS solution for retail as it is convenient and fast.
To increase the sale of your business, it is important to choose a strategy that will work for your store. Upselling and cross-selling can be significantly helpful to your business; however, you have to consider thoroughly while implementing it for your store.
In upselling and cross-selling, remember that you should provide customer value, ensure they see provided value, and give them options. This will not only increase the revenue of your business but also help customers by introducing products that they may need.
Therefore, the key to successful upselling and cross-selling is understanding your customers’ value and providing them options that meet all their needs.
Layaway is a popular option for many retailers that want to sell more items to their customers. According to a recent survey, over ¾ of the people agreed that layaway was very important for large-ticket purchases. They liked this option because it allowed them to avoid borrowing money from credit cards, since the large purchase items could be paid off in installments.
What is Layaway?
Layaway is a program through which shoppers can reserve items that aren’t immediately available at the time of purchase, paying a set amount over a period of time until they pay off the item. If a customer fails to pay off the full price of an item by the end of the term, then it is usually either forfeited, and storage and other costs are incurred.
When deciding on a layaway plan, ensure you balance several factors. First, layaway duration should be proportional with storage needs. Next, the costs associated with layaway must also be considered: it could lead to losses in your margins. Lastly, consider allowing customers to place both sale items and non-sale items on layaway; but carefully consider that service fees may need to be collected. Overall, understand that there are state laws regulating these types of plans.
Why is offering Layaway beneficial?
Layaway programs provide customers with a unique option to shop—they can have what they want, when they want it. By providing layaway options, retailers are able to increase revenue and improve the overall customer experience. Let’s take a closer look at the benefits it offers:
No interest charges make layaway cheaper than using a credit card. That is always the better option than swiping a card that has high interest rates, with a layaway option they can make smaller payments without paying extra.
Installments are a great alternative to offering a store credit card or credit plan because offering different payment options makes your business look generous and trustworthy.
Since offering installment payments are attractive to consumers, it will help in your brand’s image as well as making your products more affordable for more people. Offering different types of promotions or incentives such as gifts with purchase to people who spend a certain amount or purchase a certain item at your store can also be a great way to boost your customers’ spending.
There are plenty of different online payment programs available in the last few years with fintech companies offering interest free payments with increased limits after customers pay on time after a certain amount of time which has been proven to be an effective method to increase sales for businesses. Offering your own payment plan is a great way to keep all of your profits instead of losing a percentage to third party payment companies.
In today’s economy, offering a layaway option can help your business stand out from the competition as well as provide your customers with more payment options.
Customer service is one of the most important factors in the success of the retail business. Positive customer service will contribute to the overall growth of a business. Improving customer service can help a business grow, increase sales and profits, and lower operating costs.
Businesses that deliver poor customer service often have unhappy customers who will not return or recommend them to others. That means they also have lower chances for expanding their business by word-of-mouth marketing. Moreover, the price businesses must pay for poor performance is actually high since they don’t get repeat visits from their customers and consequently lose out on opportunities to make more money through repeat purchases.
Here are 7 ways to improve your retail customer service:
Customers are the experts of their own needs and they know the best way to solve those needs. Make sure you listen to what they have to say and then work on fixing those problems.
Aim to satisfy your customers as best as you can by getting their satisfaction surveys to see what you are doing right or wrong, then make changes accordingly.
When your customers have any questions or concerns, it is very important that you keep them informed about the progress of their orders. If you cannot respond immediately, assure them that you will get back to them soon.
To improve the customer service of your retail business, make sure your employees are trained on how to deliver outstanding customer service. Make sure they include what to say, how to say it, and what not to say in their training program.
Creating a positive first impression will help set the scene for building trust with new customers or clients with whom you are working towards building long-term relationships. The key is that it must be consistent throughout the company’s operation.
Personalized service builds a good foundation of customer loyalty. This is especially true when it comes to retaining your existing customers and acquiring new ones. Consider each customer as an individual with a set of unique needs and wants that will determine the way you work with them.
You can use technology, such as online ordering systems, to improve your customer service operations and increase efficiency. Online shopping has been increasing in popularity these days, so it is important to keep things simple and easy for the customers while they shop online or over the phone. Make sure you have a website that represents your brand values and vision.
Without professional help and smart tools, it is almost impossible to improve customer service. A little investment in the right tools can help you to take your business to a whole new level. Giving your customers the needed information and service is the only way to make things better for your business and the customers.
At retailcloud we love lists; our support team keeps a list of all features that are requested by users, our partner team keeps a list of what is important to our partners and our product team keeps yet another one on what are key industry drivers.
Recently our AI and analytics team was playing with some models to mash up all the data and see what features should be developed based on these three lists as well as what could have the greatest impact on our customer’s bottom line.
If you have been following our blogs you will see that we, and our industry, have been talking a lot about the impact of customer retention and building brand loyalty and experiences, and so while a feedback and rating system was not on our product roadmap we were not altogether surprised that our AI modeling told us that an application where customers could provide instant feedback to merchants, AND where merchants had tools and insights to make customers into fans made sense.
And so feedbk (pronounced feedback) was born; feedbk is a real time rating application that allows merchants to easily obtain feedback from their customers at the Point of Sale. It keeps track of 3 metrics for a retailer;
This feedback is automatically combined with segmentation which is critical in allowing operators to immediately identify problem areas and rectify them; it is also able to provide retailers with the ability to gauge opportunity costs that are related to such issues. feedbk operates entirely on the retailcloud platform so it can provide operators with actionable analytics on how to increase units per transaction, identify ideal product mixes, and in general, identify their most valuable customers.
It’s just version 1.0, but we are excited about feedbk and the machine learning opportunities that come from it. We believe that it is the first of many pragmatic analytic solutions from our AI team that will allow small and mid size retailers to quickly access where their staff can best focus their efforts.
The key to retail success is having a plan you can implement, reducing the variables and executing the plan to perfection! Ok So you knew that already, but how do you go about doing that.
Since you are reading this, I will assume you are part of the 20% of retailers that have put processes in place to monitor your expenses, manage your inventory levels and are reviewing your product mix and performance.
You might even be part of the 20% of the 20% that has implemented a CRM that tracks customer preferences and is aware of slippage activity; if you are just doing loyalty that’s not good enough.
So you are now part of the 20% of the 20%, now what – how do you get to be 20% of the 20% of the 20% that is executing to perfection. Let’s look at one of the simplest ways to get there.
Put another way :
80% of all small business are content with opening the doors and waiting for customers to come in – when they do they focus on selling them what they have and meeting whatever needs they ca,
20% of them are looking at their product mix and managing their costs and inventory levels on a regular basis – They are aware of a key KPI’s and are looking for ways to increase margin and ROI.
20% of that 20% (4% of all merchants) are taking it a step further they have implemented a CRM and have launched an online commerce store – they work hard at trying to increase their foot traffic, focusing on marketing, making their inventory visible and doing what they can to match their stock levels to customer preference.
The difference makers – the ones who seem to have all the luck the 20% of the 20% of the 20% (thats .8% or 80 out of a 1000 businesses) are focused on doing more with what they have – seems simple but often misunderstood it’s focusing your energy and efforts on where they make a difference. Make every action count! What does that mean.
How many customers come in and how many are buying – if for example 10 out of every 50 customers who come in buy something, focus on what it takes to get that to 11 – that immediately reflects a 20% increase in sales. Are they looking for sizes, color or product you don’t have – can you meet those needs using retailcloud’s endless aisle or predictive reordering to ensure you have the right mix? Does your clienteling system allow you to suggest substitute products?
Yes again you are right everyone says that , but what kind of insight does your POS system give you on similar customers, are you using machine intelligence to recommend items based on what customers have selected as well as what that customer has previously purchased? If your average units per transaction are 1.67 and you get 1 out of every 5 customers to buy one more item this could result in a 12% increase in sales.
Look at what how many customers are coming back and how often, does your POS system allow you to reach out to them with targeted offers (promos or experiences) to drive them back – the better you know your customers the more effective experience based marketing is; say for instance you know they love UnderArmour shoes, invite them back for an early preview of the new shoe line; or if they like a certain wine – allow them to reserve part of that allocation before it comes in – (use the retailcloud prepaid feature). Utilize the valuable information in your customer preference profiles. If you can increase your customer retention by 10% this again would have a huge impact on your bottom line.
So what does it take to be the 20% of the 20% of the 20% – it’s the little details; while your competition is using a scrambling approach you can focus on the details and successfully execute a winning strategy.
retail Key performance Indicators ( KPI ) in combination of recommendation & pragmatics analytics are key to solve sales challenges retail companies are facing. If you would like to learn more about the how you can improve your retail performance bookmark our blog and keep watching this space.
1. Embrace the data – Quality Data Will Replace Big Data , Have your POS data start working to provide you with information on lagging lines and to start matching product to customers more effectively.
2. Embrace the tech – The discussion has been resolved; Consumers do prefer shopping via mobile in store and out of the store. The POS has extended to the customer phone, and it’s easy for SMB to respond.
3. Embrace your online presence – Digital shopping can be a destination, and with the dropping cost of ecommerce, online insight to product and inventory is a must have.
4. Embrace customer engagement – Reset your customer service culture, train associates to provide quality in-store engagement and use your customer preferences and inventory data to provide relevant engagement through social media.
5. Don’t fear the unknown – It’s about a seamless customer journey. In store experiences and loyalty will get more relevant, the brick and mortar experience will become the secret weapon against big online.
6. Don’t fear payment providers – Payment solutions are becoming more competitive and innovative, the entry barriers to provide multiple payment options are being lowered as consumers demand more options.
7. Embrace Retail as a Service – It’s more than just carrying inventory and selling the product – customers expect more and suppliers want to do more. Endless aisle, pop-up stores within stores and customer preference data will all lead to a more curated retail experience for the consumer.
A lot has been written about drawing new customers and retaining your existing customer base. Statistics show that it is wiser to emphasize your efforts on retaining existing customers, as it’s 6 to 7 times more expensive to attract new customers than to keep existing customers. That being said, you probably have underutilized tools, that you are already paying for, that can help you reach new customers that will love your products.
You want to grow your business not only through catering to your existing customer base but reaching all those potential customers out there. There are a number of paths to explore with ways of attracting new customers into your store.
You are the eyes and ears of how to make your business succeeds in your community. You know the demographics of who your products will interest. Explore beyond the obvious and expand to new avenues that potentially could expose additional consumers to your store that may not have even thought of you as a viable option.
You need to think about how best to reach this audience. Give this some thought, so that you can tailor your marketing to best reach the consumers most likely to respond, seek you out and enjoy the buying experience at your store.
There are numerous ways to market to your targeted buyers, ranging from elaborate marketing tools to flyers plastered on car windows. Look at the systems that you have in place to leverage the features that you may already have and that you may not be using to their fullest.
Once you have the marketing campaign in full swing, you want to have real time data to assess the success of your program and then can pivot to increase effectiveness. You’ll want to know which marketing campaign is bring in the new customers and what kind of shoppers are they. What are their Units per Transaction and other Key Performance Indicators, are they repeat customers once they discover your business, in general how did your marketing campaign increase the bottom line.
Whatever you have put in place to reach your new consumers, it needs to be user friendly so that you can easily modify the parameters to get the results desired. A complex third party application that requires expensive development to alter may not only take too long to change, but may also come with a price tag that does not work for you.
I recommend looking no further than your POS system for advanced marketing tools. Partner with a POS company that can help you get seen by the consumers you are trying to reach.
What to ask your POS Provider to explain:
These tools should be available on your POS system and are often underutilized as merchants think that they need to look elsewhere for these solutions and often hire a third party when it’s already provided on their POS. Your POS, not only helps with sales and tracking inventory, but uses your customer data and integrations to give you incredible market reach.
The fact that retail is no longer just about product is not a secret, that it is all about engagement is not a surprise, that customers expect a unified experience is natural; but how retailers should pivot and aggregate all this data into one view remains a mystery and keeps many small and mid sized operators up at night. This has created a pressure on businesses to revisit their online strategies even those whose primary focus is their local market.
“It’s like watching an accident in slow motion, you know you got to do something but the question is what and how and for how much”
There are many sources of data to consider but let’s focus on a few simple yet meaningful places to start with. Before we get started, let’s talk a little bit about tracking or customer preferences; while no doubt most consumers do not want their every activity tracked and stored, they do not mind doing so if they can receive something of benefit and the data is stored securely. Think about how willingly we allow the cell providers to track our every movement so long as they know exactly where we are when we need directions.
To begin aggregating this data you need to start with a reliable CRM software. Ideally this is will be built into your POS application as that will solve the instore piece of it, assuming that it has the functionality of a CRM software.
In Store POS sales activity is the easiest and simplest to do; does your POS provide robust segmentation so you can classify your products into departments and categories, as well as flexibility in creating item attributes (in apparel for example size, color, style, season, brand) and does it provide you with flexibility in creating customer groupings across all channels, so you can group customers based on initial channel of the relationship or other groupings. Remember that there has to be some benefit for a customer to provide you this detail and loyalty programs are the most common, however perhaps more effective has been club pricing (like in grocery stores) or access to premium experiences (like with airlines or hotels). As you design this pick the one that works best for you.
Get our free “How to design your Loyalty program” ebook
Other benefits can be more lenient refund policy to know customers or a more restrictive return policy to anonymous transactions.
Getting your store online with insight to up to date product availability will provide you with a trove of data; encouraging customer to quickly register and login to get special pricing also rewards and encourages customers for sharing their data with you.
Customer expect to connect with their favorite retailers on their terms; when they are available and from the devices of their choice. As a result retailers are experiencing a lot of pressure to deploy online stores; unfortunately too many do this as a reactionary move and not part of a strategic move.
It is commonplace for customers to go to sites and get real time access to products and their availabilities from any device. Just think about the increase in “some product” stores near me searches in Google. Does your store appear with images that accurately represent the product and the quantities; as inventory is added or depleted from your POS system is your online store reflecting it. Does your Retail CRM aggregate customer and transactional data no matter where it happens? Does it make it available to online and offline stores easily.
Sounds complicated but it’s not, in fact any POS, Cart and CRM solution that you are using should be able to do this as a matter of fact, without much work on your end.
It’s true that most small and mid-sized operators are not doing future planning beyond the next order; however your retail CRM should be able to generate reports based on classification and attributes to not just determine what to buy buy for whom to buy it for.
In retailcloud for example our Grow and Pro users can filter product to 3 classifications and 5 attributes to determine with a fair amount of accuracy who is likely to buy new product; or to include a discount modeling to see who is likely to buy overstocked product. Your retail crm should help you minimize your investment in inventory at a product level which should free up investment in complementary inventory to increase units per transactions. Having a CRM that just stores the data is pointless, how can you utilize the crm to create personalized offers to customers, and to plan stock levels to meet your customer needs.
Retail CRM is a must have for retailers today, it does more than just give you a historical perspective of your transactional data; it should establish the relationships between the variables that affect sales and revenue; such as product mix, availability, trends etc.
Ideally it should provide tools to drive revenue growth, such as identifying tailored upsell opportunities or other methods to increase units per transaction, while helping identifying ideal product mix using overstocked and understocked algorithms.
Most crucially it should serve you all the information in a clear easy to digest and use manner , so all your operators have to do is act.
Building successful business is on every business owners mind. Increasing market share and customer loyalty is a retailer’s primary goal. The more customer’s satisfaction the more their customer loyalty, the more customers shop in their store and the more likely increase of sales and profits. Consumers, however, have different choices as to what they purchase and to whom they purchase it from. They may choose either catalog, retail store or the internet.
Customer satisfaction is used to measure how products and services provided by the retailer meet or surpass customer’s expectation. It is an important aspect of your business because it provides you with a metric that you can use to improve your business hence improving your profits and business growth. These are the four top reasons why customer satisfaction is so important for your business.
Customer’s satisfaction will determine if a customer will make a purchase in the future or not. A satisfied customer can be your potential advocates who can preach to other people about your company, products, and services. You can safely expect them to make back with their friends and make repeat purchases at the same time introducing their friends.
Business is a competitive marketplace where you compete for customers. Customer satisfaction should be your key differentiator. Companies who provide amazing customer experiences create a conducive environment where customer satisfaction is high and advocacy is plenty.
Customer satisfaction plays a huge role on how much revenue your customer will contribute to your business. Successful businesses understand the importance of customer satisfaction, they understand that if you increase your customer satisfaction rate, you increase your marketing dollar returns. Satisfied customers contribute to more revenue than a somewhat satisfied customer.
It costs you more time to acquire new customers than retaining the already existing customers. Acquiring customers cost a lot of money. Your company spends thousands in marketing to get customer attention, nurturing them and leading them into sales. You save a lot more on customer retention. Customer satisfaction leads to customer loyalty.
Customer satisfaction plays a huge role in the success of your business. Not only does it increase revenue or used as a differentiation key point, but it’s a leading indicator to identify an unhappy customer and measure your other customer loyalty. Customer loyalty has significant implications for retailers and small businesses.
The digital world is growing so is everything in businesses including giving receipts to customers. Retailers are doing things differently, they are providing digital receipts to their customer instead of the common paper option. These are clearly not the kind of receipts that many people are used to, but they can be sent to customers by retailers through email. What does this do to retailers and their customers?
More and more people are taking advantage of receiving receipts via email. Customers prefer digital over paper receipts, meaning customers would purposely buy from a retailer who provides digital receipts. They don’t have to worry about losing the receipt, handling and storing because digital files are much easier to store and retrieve when needed.
For retailer providing digital receipts save them money and help them do business in an eco-friendly way. It gives the perception of tech-savvy, especially when dealing with Millennials.
People love choice and convenience. These are the two main traits of digital receipts. In the retail arena, digital receipts are now beginning to be accepted by customers in different businesses notably banking. If banking sectors see the need of converting from paper receipts to digital, you should too. It’s convenient for many customers and also the choice they prefer.
Some people still prefer paper receipts because they are concerned about privacy when using the digital platform. Shoppers are not free to give their email addresses for digital receipts and believe you won’t misuse their personal information. Don’t assume your customer won’t want e-receipts, they are just concerned about their privacy. It’s upon the retailer to assure their customer about their privacy. Be transparent about what you do with your customer’s data and they are more likely to accept bad go for e-receipts when they see what’s in them.
A Receipt is not just an email or piece of paper, it’s a way of communicating. This powerful communication tool should be used to add value of your products and services to keep customers coming back whether it’s in store or online. Instead of using discount cards or coupons why don’t you upgrade to digital receipts and keep your customers coming back?
Digital is transforming business, the best way to keep the pace and bridge the gap between both the retailer’s side and customers is by offering e-receipts, it’s an easier option.
retailcloud premium receipt
Gone are the days that the businesses relied on conventional cash registers; cloud-based POS systems has taken the industry by storm. No matter whether you run a retail store or a restaurant, a POS system can increase the productivity significantly. Other than playing just the role of a point of sales, these systems are capable of generating vital reports for a business. But what such reports can you run on your POS system, you ask?
No matter what the type of your business is, the ultimate goal should be sales. Having a perfectly generated, detailed sales report is highly beneficial for a business. In fact, such facility should be a prerequisite of any POS system. A comprehensive sales report should emphasize sufficient information enabling you to draw a clear picture about your business. Which items make most profits for your business, which period you experience a boost in your business and which items needs to be eliminated from your product list are some of the facts you can determine referring a sales report. Below is a list of facts that can be found in a sales report.
Although sales are the bread and butter of a business, the amount of actual payments determines the amount of money you have made during a particular period. Again, POS can help you to track critical information like cash flow, credit card payments and other information that affects your payments. Such report is a great way to prevent employee theft, errors in billing, preferred payment methods of customers and determine the discounts applied on sales. POS payment reports include information such as:
Integrating CRM software to a POS is a very effective way to monitor information pertaining to important customer activities. You will be able to monitor repeat customers, develop specifically targeted marketing campaigns and develop customer loyalty programs. Modern CRM software programs are capable of capturing the customer details real-time and update the databases accordingly. Standard CRM reports include information like:
Modern POS systems come with inventory management software too. This is a great way to manage and maintain adequate stocks to be compatible with the sales volume. A report generated via this inventory management software emphasizes information like the quantities, values of the inventory and items that you are running low. Those who need in-depth reports can rely on third-party software integration to the POS.
Having understood the benefits these reports can bring to your business, it is a wise business owner to use an up-to-date, hi-end POS and rectify the potential mishaps. What you spend on a POS as a business owner is a wise investment that associated both short and long term benefits.
Saturday was a typically busy day, the farmers market across the street always brings in a lot of lookers. With our new shared goals of encouraging customers to sign up for our promotion list and to focus on units per transaction I found the team more social with customers. It was a much friendlier and energetic atmosphere which in turn made people linger longer and talk more about the displays. I made a note to be more aware of my traffic patterns, next Saturday I was going to pull out the counter.
The associates liked the ability to check the POS to look for products and stock levels, and had some great ideas on how to improve the classification of the product. Having color as an attribute was clearly something that they wanted. We opened the portal and made those changes as they came up directly on the system.During the day I checked the phone app and saw that we our average units per transaction were just below 2, I had nothing to measure it to as we have never tracked it before.
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Today’s email which was the 5th of the series, and continued on yesterday’s theme of building customer awareness. It had a post on how to raise customer awareness of my brand by having “billboards” in their wallets and inbox.
The POS solution has a gift card program, where in addition to the standard cards with my logo, you can also have customers buy and sell gift cards using mail, text and even facebook. I liked this and it made me think of how I had been neglecting my facebook business page. I looked over the gift card company’s agreement and it seemed pretty simple, there were no monthly fees and i was able to order a 100 gift cards which I did. The gift card company would contact me on how to activate the text and facebook ordering, and they were also able to put my cards in their online store for anyone to buy. Seemed worthwhile as I only paid them if someone bought a card and a transaction fee when the redeemed. I was also able to use the send by facebook feature for promotions to attract new customers.
Got email 2 in the 10 email series and today it suggested I add any customer data into the system, as well as turn on built in features to add customers to the mailing list. This would allow me to generate mailchimp campaigns on demand.
I had customer lists on constant contact, mailchimp, an excel spreadsheet and a note pad. I started by downloading the lists from constant contact and mailchimp after which I entered the names and email addresses from my note pad onto the excel sheet. The chat support asked me to share the files with them, and after looking at it determined it was more involved process to combine the data so they asked me to open a ticket and they would create a file for me that I could then import. Which I did.
Once I opened and received my retailcloud welcome email, I went to the management portal as it recommended to update my default settings. I entered my store information and sales tax rate for the store. I imagine that this will all show up on the POS receipts.
Next, I exported the data from my current system and checked the UPC numbers and noticed that some of the numbers were much smaller than others, in looking further, I realized that the leading zeros were not being exported from QB. I got on retailcloud chat to see if there was a way to get them and they told me not to worry about it as they had a flag to append leading zeros in their solution.
“Already loving the retail made simple concept.”
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Some interesting statistics:
More than 80% of U.S. retail sales will still happen within the four walls of a store (McKinsey & Company)
44% of email recipients made at least one purchase last year based on a promotional email. (Convince and Convert)
80% of email subscribers are added at the Point of Sale (Paradise Pen)
Digital interactions influence 50% of in-store sales (Deloitte Digital)
91% of consumers have gone into a store based on an online experience. (Dimensional Research)
These are amazing stats and show the importance of building and use your customer mailing lists. Here is a step by step process of how to import your existing lists, some tips about growing your lists and how to activate and launch an email campaign.
Lets begin by gathering all your various customer lists you have and put them in an excel file, ideally you will want to have the following fields:
Once your list has been gathered you are now ready to organize and import the list using the Advanced User Import. You may review your list and say it’s not large enough or perfect enough, but don’t let that dissuade you from doing your first campaign (Remember the statistics above; 44% of email recipients make at least one purchase based on a promotional email).
So whats the best way to build a list? Ask at the point of sale!
This method is particularly effective when combined with incentives like discounts and offers. Activate CRM Builder to start prompting your cashiers to ask customers if they would like to be added to your list to receive special offers. Paradise Pen Co. actually collect 80% of their customer emails in-store. Combine this with incentives using gift cards or loyalty and start not only building your list, but also tracking SKU level and transactional data about your customers. Remember to set up static and frequency groups to get even more insight on your customer habits; do they respond to discounts or certain product mixes? When you create these special offers use the club pricing feature to automatically have eligible customer groups automatically receive that offer once they are linked to a transaction.
Offers and discounts are not the only motivation for consumers to get added to a mailing list, many retailers use early access to new products as an incentive to successfully build their list. As you get to know more about your customers, you can tailor campaigns specifically based on their shopping habits or even by using the New For You capability on the TabPOS. For those using the recommended items prompt, these recommendations also get more targeted the more you know about the customer.
You can begin by activating mailchimp under the Integrations tab in the Configuration Menu when signed in as the system administrator. If you do not see it, please contact us via chat or by sending an email to support@retailcloud.com to have it activated for you.
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Seems like every industry serving retailers has a disrupter that is using Zero pricing from Cell Providers Tax Services to Web Services and everyone in between. This blog is meant to look at POS solutions that are available for Zero. (more…)
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