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 we are announcing the General availability of PAX A920 Mobile All in one Smart Terminal with retailcloud’s point of sale solution. Last April we had launched the PAX E500 Smart Terminal. As we outlined in that post PAX commitment on suite of smart terminals has enabled us to launch more in the series.

PAX A920 Smart terminal is an all-in-one payment processing terminal with retailcloud’s full fledged point of sale and inventory management. PAX A920 is sleek, fast and secure.

With retailcloud’s Terminal on PAX A920 you can now manage your sales, engage with your customers, accept payments & print your receipts. It is a beautiful looking device which can be snapped into your pocket and use it whenever you need it.

Some of the key features & benefits of the retaicloud’s smart terminal are

Beautiful Design

PAX a920 is an engineering marvel with sleek design and comes with a HD tablet color display and integrated thermal printer . The printer is designed in such a way that it is not bulky but still fit a decent size paper roll into it.  PAX A920 comes with Integrated Printer, Payment device and a high speed barcode scanner. Optional Dock is available to charge as well

Point of Sale

retailcloud’s Software turn the A920 into a full featured point of sale software with customer engagement and cloud access. Print your detailed reports within the device or have it accessed through our cloud portal.

Mobile Connectivity

With the option to connect via Wifi or your cell phone provider you can take your point of sale to any location or if you need mobility for your business.

Inventory Management

Manage your inventory for single location or multi location with retailcloud A920. Inventory is managed automatically as the products are sold from your stores.

Secure Payment

A920 can accept all modern secure payment technologies such as EMV, MSR and Tap Payment.

Cash Discounting & Surcharges

Ability to do Cash Discounts, Surcharge or just add fee automatically when you make a sale is key for a lot or merchant to keep the business cost under control. Retailcloud terminal software allows the business owners to do this efficiently and display it on receipt.

If you are a business owner and exploring about mobile point of sale or adding another point of sale for your roadshows PAX A920 Smart Terminal is right choice to get started. Click the order now button to contact us if you want to learn more on how PAX A920 can be a solution for your store

Is mobile an effective sales channel for retail?

Given that Forrester states consumers have spent $60 billion from mobile phones in 2016 alone and have influenced over $1 trillion dollars in brick and mortar sales, that question may have to be marked “Answered and Resolved!”

No doubt you have seen the various posts on the demise of bricks and mortar retail over the past few months; however, there are some conflicting stats.  Accenture surveyed nearly 10,000 consumers and found that while social media is the most preferred method of purchasing for millennials and post millennials, for 77% of them, bricks and mortar were preferred.

This being a generation that has spent their entire life depending on smartphones, its inevitable that devices play a key role in finding product, comparing prices, looking for reviews and promotions; so let’s look at the top things they are doing on their devices

•    Compare Prices (52%)
•    Look up product information (47%)
•    Read customer reviews on a product (44%)
•    Search for a coupon (39%)
•    Locate a store nearby and hours (32%)
•    Checked availability of product (30%)

Where brick and mortar retail excels is in its ability to provide superior brand engagement to consumers – there is a personal authentic experience that cannot be replicated in online sales; however, giving consumers transparency to the inventory and experience from their mobile devices is a key component of this process.

Gen Z consumers are typically looking to start the shopping experience before they even walk into the store, they want a high level of engagement on the store floor but a frictionless easy checkout process. Ideally, surveys show most of them would prefer checkout directly from the devices (Amazon & Walmart are already making inroads in this capability).

While online will continue to grow, I believe that traditional brick and mortars refusal to provide their consumers a mobile interaction channel is really what will ultimately be more of a detriment than the online boom. What their customers want is the ability to provide a high engagement experience that incorporates the online and offline experience in one seamless process. Mobile will continue to be the key in enabling that process

Checkout experience is a key part of shopping experience for a consumer. You might have seen occasions where a customers get disappointed with a very bad experience and thus get reflected in the reviews.  Checkout experience for an in store shopping is mainly driven by the cashiers ability to handle the transaction engaging, smooth and fast .

According to study from Harris poll & Digimarc 88% Of U.S. Consumers Want A Faster Checkout Experience

“Checkout is the last opportunity a retailer has to make a positive impression on a shopper,” said Larry Logan, CMO of Digimarc. “Asking customers to endure a lengthy wait to process and pay for their order can spoil what may have otherwise been an enjoyable shopping experience.”

Recently one of the retailcloud’s customer specifically touched on this topic asked these questions before signing up for an enterprise license

1. Can retailcloud POS handle checkout really fast ? Like adding 100+ items in a 1 minute .
2. How about if every order is average of 40 – 50 items ? Will it slow eventually ?
3. Will the pos freezes up if there is a problem with servers in cloud ?
4. Will everything stop if the internet goes down and will it can it recover back. 

Based on our extensive experience in Large Sports & Entertainment events, we were positive about #3, #4 and semi confident on #1 & #2  and we put it up for stress test with the customer’s team. The test was based up with 30 – 40 cashiers just banging the checkout process as fast as possible. The outcome was very positive and we ended up executing the event successfully.  

The customer’s team was very smart in identifying their potential operational problem ( which a lot of people don’t ) identify based on their prior experience and they had crafted their business requirements to that. One of they key thing which was passive through this process was “ How easy was it to train a cashier “

They key things which makes a better experience for a cashier is

1. Accessibility of the most commonly used features
2. Navigation between screens
3. Touch Targets & Readability
4. How easy i can get help if i needed

retailcloud POS solutions focuses on all these areas and address this based on the users feedback we receive from the ground. On an average it takes 3 – 5 minutes for a cashier to learn 80 % of the cashier functions on retailcloud screens. This is one of the reason when Sport Arenas , Large Events, Outlet Sale events becomes a successful programs where you have to train 100’s on cashiers in different shifts.

Another factor which helps checkout experience to have MSIB ( More Stuffs in Bag ) is how you engage with customer.  A few things can dramatically increases the experience are

1. Recommend a product with ease to a customer based on what they bought
2. Know your customer & buying patterns through their CRM History
3. Engage them to your brand or store through Loyalty Programs.

This will be only successful if the checkout experience is less painful for the cashier and consumer. While Checkout experience is evolving there are also other aspects which can be looked into it such as

1. Kiosk based checkout 
2. Self checkout areas
3. In app or mobile checkout . Checkout Express checkout which retailcloud is partnered with
4. Innovative Payment Experiences

Overall time and usability matters for both employees and consumers and we believe in making that experience as smooth as possible . If you would like to learn more about retailcloud plans and features visit here 

retailcloud monthly plans start from $0 and If you would like to signup for an account click here