3 Must have POS feature for Pet Stores

You own a Pet Store. It may be a specialty pet store, it may be large multi lane and multi location, it may be a straight forward pet shop. Regardless, you have specific needs based on your merchandise and customer expectations. You need a POS solution that understands pet stores and successfully addresses the needs.

I’m not going to discuss the multitude of features that are needed by many or most retail businesses. I want to focus on what makes your POS needs unique.

1. Bulk Sales – Bird Feed, dog food, bedding, litter

The POS needs to be able to sell items in decimal places and return inventory levels in decimal places for accurate accountability.

2. Advanced Sales Promotions

Pet owners and your competing pet stores expect and appreciate creative sale techniques. Your POS solution needs to be able to offer a range of promotions, from buy one get one, to quantity discounts, and Club Pricing. Discounts should have automatic date ranges so when the sale ends, the cashier discount is no longer applied and its not left up to the cashier to decide.

3. Disclaimers

It would be great to have disclaimers automatically print on the customer’s receipt on specific items or categories of items It may be a category – Live Puppies, where you would like the return policy to be very different from when you sell 10 lbs of Kibble. Select a POS system that allows you to print a specific disclaim on specific items. Better yet, add a signature line, so that the owner has proof that the customer understands the policy.

Embrace the unique POS needs of the Pet Store Industry and look for the tools that help you success.

It’s never too late to teach an old dog new tricks 🙂 .

Today’s perfect grocery store point of sale and retail management solution is full-featured, speedy, and reliable. Supermarkets need a POS solution that is seamless, running on grocery POS software that is fully connected to the rest of the store. From a single lane, multi lane, or many locations the POS solution needs to grow with the business and provide the tools for success.

The grocery store needs significantly more than a cash registers that prints receipts and holds cash. The perfect POS system addresses inventory, loyalty, analytics, and accounting. Grocery stores carry tens of thousands of products: fruits and vegetables, meats, breads, and dairy. Keeping track of product volume and sales data will maximize profit and help avoid spoilage, shrink, and stock-outs.

A strong POS system will streamline supermarket operations, cut costs, grow grocer’s profits, and maximize efficiency.

In looking at a POS solution, consider these key features:

• Deli/scale integration
• Mix and Match Pricing
• Club Pricing
• Inventory Management
• Submit Purchase Orders Via Email with variance reports
• Easy Inventory Adjustments & Label Printing
• Universal Product Database
• Fast, seamless transactions
• Simple cashier interface with hot keys (with pictures)
• CRM and loyalty programs
• Accept coupons and create your own
• Reporting and analytics
• Demand Forecasting
• Sales tracking
• Employee tracking and management

Important to consider is the POS provider. Look for software upgrades and enhancements to be included in your monthly POS license fee, this can save you hundreds, if not thousands annually. Understand their merchant support, are they available during your peak hours. Are ou provided with training during your critical early days with the new software. And dont forget track record, are they comfortable with understanding the needs of the grocery store merchant and have the features to help your business thrive.

Today was the 5th day since I activated my retailcloud account, and I received email 4 of the boarding series. It was about how to create a mailing campaign and some promotions, it also guided you through how to check the effectiveness of the campaign.

As you may recall from my Day 3 blog, I started with about 400 customers and added a few more since then, at the POS.  I  scanned through my Inventory Balance Reports as well as my Bestseller and Sales Summary Reports and was not sure what direction to go. Back on chat support and we concluded that after less than 3 days of sales there was not enough data to run a targeted campaign, so I decided to run a general promotion.

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