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.

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.

The best way to retain your customers is by having a loyalty program. A loyalty program is a kind of a rewards program that is offered by a company to the customers who make frequent purchases. The loyalty program can reward the customer either by free merchandise, coupons, rewards and even some advance released products which other customers would not get. Customers automatically get more value from businesses that they are loyal to as compared to the one stop shops. A loyalty program should work for both the company and the customer. It should not be biased such that only the customer is benefiting from the program, and it is not profitable to the company.

One good reason why loyalty programs work for small businesses is that they use a loyalty point of sale system. This is POS software awards the customer automatically every time they reach a certain level in the royalty programs. Remember a loyalty program has an absolute limit of purchases that a customer should reach for them to be rewarded. The point of sale system will automatically record the number of times that the customer has visited the business and the purchases done during those visits. Sometimes the customer might have difficulties keeping up with the loyalty program, but the point of sale system makes it easier.

POS system help increase the business revenue by raising the visit frequency of a customer and the amount they spend per visit. It does this by offering an attractive reward structure and as well as attractive points per visit. For a small business with a good POS system, it’s very easy to term transactions into relationships with their customers. The more you get the customer to come back and spend on your store, the more you get to know them as individuals. This way the small business learns to treat their customers as individuals by knowing their tastes and preferences. This is easier for small businesses because it is not hard to keep up with a group of customers in your surrounding as opposed to the large companies where customers come from different places making it hard to keep up with them.

A small business with good POS software can sell the idea of a loyalty program to customers in a much better way. The POS will keep the record of the customer’s transactions based on each visit. When the customer reaches the rewards level, the small business can even reward the customer using cash. This is because the POS software keeps track of the transactions of the loyalty program per customer. A small business will reward the customer with free merchandise and also cash. A cash reward might seem risky for the business, but it is not if the business has good POS software. This would be harder for big business because of the complexity of their POS. The small business can keep a good loyalty point of sale system that will be profitable to them and also to the customer. The business will be able to retain and even call back some of its inactive customers. This way they increase sales revenue significantly.