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
The new rules in Major League Baseball aimed at shortening average game times can have several impacts on merchandising and concession sales at stadiums: MLB revealed the pitch clocks have shaved an average of 26 minutes a game to 2 hours and 36 minutes. The following are some of the ways that game day sales have been impacted.
Reduced sales volume: With shorter game times, fans will spend less time in the stadium, which could lead to fewer opportunities for them to purchase merchandise and concessions. This may result in a decrease in overall sales volume.
Shift in spending patterns: As fans adapt to the new game duration, they may alter their spending habits. For example, they might make quicker purchases before the game or during breaks, rather than casually browsing and buying items throughout the game. This could lead to increased sales in specific periods, such as pre-game or between innings.
Focus on efficiency: With a shift in buying habits, stadium operators can increase the efficiency of their merchandising and concession operations with sports and entertainment POS systems. This could include streamlining product offerings or offering item of the day promotions, optimizing staffing, and adopting technology to speed up transactions.
Changes in pricing: Stadiums may adjust their pricing strategies to compensate for the potential decrease in sales volume. This could involve offering discounts or promotions to encourage fans to spend more in a shorter time frame, or even increasing prices to maintain revenue levels.
Increased emphasis on fan experience: To keep fans engaged and spending during shorter games, stadiums may invest more in enhancing the overall fan experience with premium suites in seating. This could include offering unique or limited-edition merchandise, creating innovative food and beverage options, or providing interactive experiences that encourage fans to visit concession stands and merchandise outlets.
Off-stadium sales: Teams and stadiums might also increase their focus on online and off-stadium sales channels to offset potential losses from decreased in-stadium sales. This could involve improving their online stores, offering exclusive online deals, or partnering with local retailers for co-branded merchandise.
Ultimately, the impact of the new rules on merchandising and concession sales at a stadium will depend on how well teams and stadium operators adapt to the changes and implement strategies to maintain or increase sales in the new environment. Improving the fan experience with improved checkout efficiency, allowing fans to return to their seats will be paramount.
To speed up transaction times in merchandising at stadiums and improve the overall fan experience, there are several technologies that can be adopted:
RFID technology: Integrating RFID tags into merchandise and using RFID scanners at the point of sale can expedite the checkout process by instantly updating inventory and allowing for quicker transactions.
Mobile ordering apps: Fans can use their smartphones to pre-order and pay for merchandise, allowing them to skip lines and simply pick up their items at designated locations or have them delivered to their seats.
Self-service kiosks: Equipped with touchscreens and payment processing systems, these kiosks enable fans to quickly place orders and pay for merchandise without waiting in line at traditional counters.
Automated inventory management: Smart inventory systems can help ensure merchandise is always in stock and readily available, reducing wait times for items to be retrieved from storage.
In-seat merchandise: Installing small vending machines or merchandise storage lockers near seating areas can allow fans to quickly purchase items without leaving their seats.
Digital wallets: By creating a digital wallet or a stadium-specific currency, fans can preload money onto their accounts for faster transactions at merchandise stands.
Queue management: Implementing queue management systems, like virtual queuing or line-monitoring apps, can help distribute customers evenly among available service points and reduce wait times. Giving fas access to approximate wait times at different stands can also help them plan their purchasing trips
Augmented reality (AR) shopping: AR can allow fans to virtually try on merchandise and make purchases from their seats, eliminating the need to visit a physical store or stand.
By adopting these technologies, stadiums can create a more efficient merchandising experience for fans, allowing them to spend less time waiting in line and more time enjoying the event.
Determining the Item of the day sales can be complicated, ideally they should create an urgency for fans to buy a specific item without cannibalizing existing sales, you can follow a systematic approach that leverages data and considers various factors. Here’s an algorithm to help you identify the “Item of the Day” for each game:
Collect data: Gather historical sales data for all items in your inventory. Ideally, you should have data for the past few seasons to better understand sales trends and customer preferences. Also, take note of any special events or promotions that might have influenced sales.
Determine item popularity: Calculate the average sales per game for each item. Rank them according to their popularity. This will help you identify the items that are selling well and those that need a boost.
Identify slow-moving items: From the ranked list, identify items that have a low sales volume per game and could benefit from being the “Item of the Day.”
Factor in seasonality and trends: Consider the time of the year, special events, or other trends that might affect item popularity. For example, if your team has a rivalry game coming up, you might want to promote items related to that rivalry.
Create a non-repeating schedule: Once you have identified a pool of items that can be featured as the “Item of the Day,” create a schedule for the 81 home games that ensures no item is repeated.
Set a discount strategy: Determine the discount percentage or pricing strategy for each “Item of the Day.” You might want to offer a higher discount for slow-moving items or lower discounts for more popular items to avoid cannibalizing sales.
Monitor and adjust: Track the sales performance of the “Item of the Day” and compare it with historical sales data. If you notice any negative impact on overall sales, adjust your strategy accordingly.
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.
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.
Omnichannel and multi-channel are two distinct approaches to marketing and customer engagement, each focusing on connecting with customers through multiple platforms. The primary difference lies in their level of integration and the customer experience they aim to deliver.
Adopting an omni-channel approach in your marketing, sales, and service strategies has plenty of benefits. It helps you build a unified customer experience and streamline data collection, which makes it easier to generate high-quality leads, close deals faster, and deliver the best possible customer service.
The term multi-channel refers to several different channels working independently from one another. For example, a company may use email to send out newsletters while simultaneously running an AdWords campaign and posting on social media. The success of each channel is measured separately as well. Multi-channel also means that customers may have an experience with multiple channels at once.
Omni-channel refers to all channels working together in harmony to provide a seamless customer experience. The goal for companies using omni-channel is to deliver a consistent message across all channels.
The terms omni-channel and multi-channel are often used interchangeably, but there is a big difference between the two. Multi channel marketing refers to using multiple channels or platforms. You may be using email marketing to nurture leads, social media ads to drive traffic to your site, and a chatbot on your website to answer questions and provide support services. These are all different channels that you are using, but there is no integration between them. They operate independently of each other.
Omni-channel is the strategy of using multiple channels to deliver a consistent brand experience to customers. Multi-channel, on the other hand, is a way to describe the interconnectedness of customer interactions with brands across different touchpoints. These touchpoints include mobile marketing, engaging social media campaigns, and a well-designed website. All omni-channel experiences will use these channels, but not all multi-channel experiences are considered omni-channel.
There are a ton of benefits to using omni-channel and multi-channel:
Cater to more customers
This is a customer-centric approach that’s focused on the experience. It means you’re not just creating a strategy for a single channel, but instead, one that will work across multiple channels. This means you need to be present wherever your customer is present. Your customers can be at home on the couch, at work in the break room, or out and about at a local store. As they move from one place to another, they can still find you there, too.
The retail experience is about to undergo a major shift as consumers are going to be able to shop anywhere, anytime. Consumers want a unified shopping experience when they’re ready to make a purchase, and will expect their favorite brands to offer a consistent shopping experience across multiple platforms and channels. By offering a seamless service across multiple channels you’ll be able to attract more customers, but also build a stronger relationship with them, making it easier for them to buy from you again and again.
Omnichannel ecommerce is about creating a seamless and consistent experience for the customer across all channels, both digital and physical. The key to a successful omnichannel strategy is consistency in delivering the same personalized experience to customers across all touchpoints and channels.
Multi-channel is about offering your customers options when it comes to how they want to interact with your brand. Enabling customers to contact you through multiple channels such as the phone, email, or social media, or allowing them to purchase products through your website, mobile app or in-store. Multi-channel allows customers to get in touch with you on their own terms.
With the rise of ecommerce and new channels, an Omnichannel POS Solutions has become imperative for retailers. It’s a system that allows direct sellers to provide customers with an integrated shopping experience that crosses multiple physical and digital channels. This is the future of retail customer experience.Don’t know where to start? Contact our team info@retailcloud.com to get your own omnichannel solution.
Although retailers are increasingly using the digital channel to reach consumers, they’re not closing their physical stores—which is where an integrated solution comes in. New technology makes it possible to shift digital and physical inventory seamlessly and deliver a seamless buying experience to shoppers.
What’s more, an integrated solution can help you streamline your back- and front-of-house operations. An omnichannel sales system will help you expand your market reach and keep items moving through your distribution channels. Some business owners and marketing managers are daunted by the prospects of trying to reach out to customers using multiple channels and media, but an omni-literate strategy can change all that.
Many online shoppers would rather have products delivered than picked up locally, but only a small percentage of eCommerce retailers offer same-day delivery and most retailers are missing out on the opportunity to deliver quickly.
Most of us are busy and don’t have time to run all over town, so we’re getting more and more of our stuff delivered right to our doorsteps. But if you want to gain the highest possible number of loyal customers, you need to offer flexible pickup and delivery options so that you are able to cater to more customers!
Retailers have a big challenge ahead as a lack of workers could make it harder to keep up with increased demand. To make sure they can handle more customers, many retailers are turning to technology to do some menial tasks as they try to find ways to reduce their cost.
Three areas where retailers say they will most benefit from automated technology are: streamlining the way they manage orders, running customer loyalty programs, and communicating with customers. Retailers who want to hire more employees should consider investing in software that helps automate these tasks.
If you’re a retailer, it’s important to make a good impression on your customers by providing an excellent selection of products in your store and creating opportunities for shoppers to connect with you online.
Today, the number of shoppers who shop online are in a steady incline so establishing an online presence and maintaining a local presence is key. E-commerce is a powerful tool for retailers, who can benefit from the reach and convenience that Internet sales provide.
As social media becomes the primary place for consumers to shop, retailers are increasingly selling through channels such as Instagram and Pinterest. Retailers are bringing together multiple sales channels to stay competitive in today’s evolving retail landscape.
Social shopping trends show no signs of slowing down, Facebook and Instagram continue to be the most lucrative platforms for retailers to sell on. As consumers continue to connect with brands and retailers on their favorite social media platforms, more retailers are turning to those platforms in order to drive inevitable increases in sales.
retailcloud is pioneering omnichannel order management solutions that provides businesses of all sizes access to tablet, windows and phone solutions with API integration to ERP and ecommerce systems. retailcloud provides retailers a way to increase sales, better manage inventory, collect valuable data on the shopping habits of their customers and much more. The system is scalable and grows with your business. Interested in knowing more about retailcloud’s solutions? You may contact us directly at sales@retailcloud.com
Setting up a point of sale system, or POS, is something that most people in retail or any brick-and-mortar company will do at some point. POS systems are one of the most basic parts of any business and have become essential to seamless transactions.
But it has changed through the years to adapt to evolving trends in business and commerce.
Particularly, the rise of digital and e-commerce changed the landscape of point-of-sale systems. POS software now has to adapt to the growing digitization of business practices and technologies. Sometimes, it might not be that easy.
Still, we need to move with the changes if we want our businesses to stay efficient and relevant in this new era of technology.
Point-of-sales software should generally be straightforward, but much like any solution, it can come with a few hiccups. Let’s discuss some of the most common POS software challenges today and how to overcome them.
Before learning how to set up a POS system and maximize it, we first need to choose the right system for the business. Choosing the best fit for your operations is a crucial decision to avoid headaches switching systems too often. While it’s not a crime to change POS software every year or so, it can become quite inefficient at some point.
To get the best system for your context, research is your best friend. Get up to three options that fit your business best and make a comparison.
Not all POS systems are created equal. Sometimes the best solution for another business might not be the best for you. Know what your non-negotiables are in terms of feature, pricing, and support, and decide based on your contingent needs and requirements.
Mobile POS systems are slowly becoming the norm. The volume of mobile POS transactions was expected to reach US$2,466,606 in 2021.
Traditional POS systems were bulky, and they only stayed in one location. If that system gets broken, it’s difficult to gain its data back.
Using a mobile system that can connect with a tablet or phone has all kinds of benefits. Personnel can carry the POS system around and bring them to the customer instead of having the customer come to a counter. It also takes up less space and weighs less, which could provide some flexibility to our employees.
Given that mobile retail is up like never before, it might be good to consider switching to a mobile POS system. However, mobile devices do have their downsides. For instance, they’re easier to steal or misplace. To avoid this, policies should be in place to steward the hardware better. Have a safe place to store the POS system to avoid theft— somewhere out of sight and preferably with a fastening or enclosure.
Part of any POS implementation checklist should be security. And that shouldn’t only include the physical security of the hardware but also the data and digital aspects too.
Cybersecurity is becoming a prevalent form of crime in today’s digital era. Identity theft, data breaches, and malicious hacking are becoming more of a threat.
To avoid any data or cybersecurity threats, business owners and retailers should always choose a POS system with basic security features, such as data encryption and two-step verification. Use complex passwords for logins and enable any pin number setups where possible. There’s no such thing as “overkill” when it comes to data security.
Integrating day-to-day sales and transactions with marketing campaigns is a must for smooth business operations to avoid confusion and customer concerns. One of the basic POS features every retailer should require in a system is a promotion and offer tracker. It’s always best practice to connect promotions with POS systems. Find a system that has an in-build promotions tracker. This feature will take care of applying any discounts or offers to ensure that they’re tracked accordingly for accounting and inventory purposes, which leads to the next challenge that business owners and retailers face with POS systems.
Dealing with inventory management can be an arduous task without the help of tools and systems. The key to saving time and getting more accurate results in inventory counting and management is to ditch manual systems and automate it. POS systems can actually be a great way to streamline this process. Most, if not all, of the best POS systems today have an inventory management feature that helps log product inventory and update it as sales go out.
For any business with product inventory, the temptation is to skip this feature in your point-of-sale systems. But doing so is doing your business and employees a huge disservice. Inventory management can help save a lot of time from manually tracking product stocks. It also removes any errors that could lead to deadweight loss and sales discrepancies. Set up your inventory tracker and integrate them with your inventory systems to keep a better account of product stocks.
In this day and age ruled by big data, businesses need to learn to leverage data and analytics to make better business decisions. The numbers don’t lie, and they can help point out what’s working and what’s not. Data around sales, purchase returns, customer feedback, and so on can provide valuable insight to help businesses delight customers and improve business metrics. Leverage your POS system’s data and analytics by using them as benchmarks in strategy meetings and planning sessions.
E-retail sales are now hitting $4.2 trillion worldwide. So it only makes sense that POS systems should integrate with e-commerce platforms. Seamless integrations to an online shop will allow POS software to automatically gather and track sales data, order details, and fulfillment requirements in one platform.
This way, it becomes easier for staff to stay on top of orders, given that all transactions land on one platform instead of two. This integration also makes it possible to make comparisons between brick-and-mortar performance with online ones.
Recently, POS systems have also started integrating with live chat software to streamline customer service and feedback channels with point-of-sale tools. This integration allows businesses to respond more proactively to complaints and concerns for faster resolution.
Customer support is a vital part of business growth and operations. It helps extend the customer lifetime value by ensuring long-term trust-based relationships with clients. Leveraging on any software, systems, or features that can help improve customer insight and feedback gathering can equip businesses with the necessary information to build those long-lasting business relationships.
The far majority of businesses today still use on-site POS systems. But up to 28% of retailers said that they would be switching to retail cloud-based POS software in the near future. Accordingly, your business might want to consider learning how to implement a POS system on a cloud-based solution as it provides an array of other benefits and advantages to your business like flexibility, data access from anywhere, and seamless communication between POS systems from multiple sites.
All this to say, point-of-sales is changing fast along with the needs, priorities, and challenges that businesses today face. We need to be on the lookout for where e-commerce and business solutions will be going this 2022 and beyond to stay ahead of the innovation curve. Doing that will keep your business relevant and competent in the immediate and beyond.
Restaurants have higher numbers of employees and customers than small businesses. It requires operating a business in various locations — whether owned or franchised — to manage their schedules and work shifts simultaneously. To operate a restaurant, the business owner should possess great managerial, accounting, human resources, marketing and HR administration skills in addition to the ability to make delicious food.
Modifiers are a great way to add more details on an order, such as desired side dishes or preferred cooking temperature. They can be added to orders in the Modifier section, which you access by clicking on the Shopping Cart menu and selecting Modify Orders.
Sales Per Employee Ratio aims at understanding the productivity of the employees. This ratio basically helps in keeping track of the relationship between a company’s number of salespersons and their total revenues, and even makes it easier to payout tips to the correct employee as well.
You want your POS system to have kitchen routing so that your order gets sent to the right station, this is especially important if you want certain orders to be sent to the bar or to the kitchen. It streamlines the order preparation process and makes things simpler for your staff.
Being able to split checks is a feature that you need so that your restaurant can offer different ways to make payments.This can range from splitting the bill between multiple cards or splitting amounts between cash and card. You want a point of sale that offers as many flexible payment options as possible so that you can cater and appeal to more customers.
Being able to generate tip reports and receive tips on glass is an important feature that you need from your POS system. This allows you to keep a record of the tips received by your employees at the end of their shift, and you are aware of who to pay it out to. It is good to know and keep track of your tips so that your business is not scrambling during tax season.
If you have different menu items available at certain times, at different prices, or if you have Happy Hour, having a time-based menu is a very helpful feature. This is especially helpful for your employees so that they don’t have to manually enter the appropriate prices when they are set to change.
In order to maximize your profits, you have to build an online presence as well. People nowadays are taking convenience into account so offering guests the ability to place their orders online and get it delivered to their doorstep is a huge deciding factor on whether or not they will take their business to your restaurant.
Online ordering integration is an important feature that you must have if you already have an online ordering website. There are online ordering solutions like retailcloud’s, that can even route online orders to the kitchen display screen or to a kitchen printer so that you can immediately start preparing the order.We can help you find the right solution for your restaurant, shoot us an email at sales@retailcloud.com and we can get you started on the right track!
No matter the size of your business, you need to make sure your POS system offers everything you need. In this article, we’re going to highlight some of the best POS system features out there.
Time and attendance is a way to verify that your employees are working at the hours they are paid for. It helps in the calculation of employee payroll and to prevent absenteeism. Managing time and attendance manually, though, can be challenging without an integrated solution.
With retailcloud, there is no limit to the number of products you can have. Nor do you pay any additional fees for adding a large number of products in your store. Instead, you pay the same fixed monthly fee you would have paid even if you had just 10 or 20 products. This way, it doesn’t cost more to have many products rather than only a few. You’ll also never be charged an extra fee for having a large number of products like other eCommerce solutions do.
A loyalty program is a business tool that gives you an advantage by encouraging customers to shop with you more frequently. This form of marketing encourages customers to remain loyal to your business and use the services or products that your store or restaurant has to offer. Loyalty programs have proven to be successful when implemented correctly. They are often used in retail or restaurants, but they can also help corporations and even non-profits.
If you have a retail business, chances are there’s inventory involved. You need to know what came in, what’s going out and exactly where it is at all times. Barcode scanning can ensure that everything is accounted for and managed effectively throughout your entire organization. It also helps in printing barcodes for your items so that you can easily scan it without having to manually enter the price or SKU numbers.
Discounts and promos are never a bad idea when it comes to marketing your store. It’s one of the most effective ways to bring in new customers, save money on your marketing budget and help you cash in on more sales. It’s also quite straightforward to implement and provides your customers an incentive which makes it a no-brainer for most retail businesses out there. Choosing a POS system that can offer flexible discounts would be a great choice.
Having a product variance and matrix is important so that you can store information about your products. It is a great feature for better inventory management so that you can input and classify by attributes or categories.
Having Quickpick buttons on your POS are important so that you can quickly add non-scannable items to the customers’ cart. Items that are too large, too small, or best sellers are great items to have their own quick pick buttons.
Online shopping is bigger than ever so having an online presence is very important for a business. You would want to choose a point of sale software that has online integration so that your sales are updated in real time and reflect your inventory accurately. Offering shipping and curbside pickup options are also ways to easily boost your sales since more people are choosing the most convenient shopping options now and more and more stores are adapting as well.
There are more features that would certainly help you run your business more efficiently, we can help you with that! Shoot us an email and connect with one of our POS experts today.
Getting your business ready for the upcoming holiday sales seems like the most daunting task for the majority of retail merchants. The lack of agile business management systems makes it impossible for them to make the required changes without affecting the whole business operation. No one can predict the sales analytics for 2021 for the Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals.
Since we are still in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, most of this year’s holiday sales will come from online purchases. A great way to ensure smooth transactions is by streamlining your online ordering process. There are many tools available out there that can successfully help retailers do so with Apps like OrderUp, an easy to implement fulfillment solution app plugged into retailcloud’s commerce ecosystem.
The integration of this smart tool ensures that your system is capable of handling curbside or in-store pickup. This approach can help your business to ensure smooth flow of orders and deliveries on the upcoming holiday sale events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2021.
Apart from this business approach, here are a few major things that every business should consider in preparing for Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2021:
Start early so that you have more time to test everything such as how you will handle fulfilling a larger volume of customers and orders. Having enough time to study the market and prepare for the increase in sales you will be getting from will help you to ease the shopping experience for your customers.
Integrating online sales towards the Black Friday and Cyber Monday success of your business. Online sales can help you reach more customers and increase your profits so this is a very important step.
Create loyal customers through customized rewards programs, with up to three tiers of rewards, and targeted promotions based on customer purchase history.
Give special pricing & discounts exclusively to loyal customers. Customers love discounts and having club pricing makes them feel special and motivates them to shop more with your store.
Update your website with high-resolution images. Ignoring the visuals of your online store is the biggest mistake here. If you are offering sales and discounts then let the customers know about it and make sure they are visible right when they get to your website. There is no better way to advertise your deals than having a dedicated banner on the home page!
To stay ahead in this technology-driven world, it is important to work with the best agencies. If you are looking for an agency that can help your business get ahead in this hi-tech world, check out eCommerce solutions for retailers where you can harness the true power of the digital world for your business.
There are different other ways to improve the online game of your business. From social media marketing to the right integration of powerful tools, there are many business aspects where your retail merchants need to focus on to tackle the high demand of the products on the sale events.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday can be exceptionally good events for your business if you know how to manage things properly. Consumer spending rates are at the peak at these events so retail merchants need to equip their businesses with the right tools and solutions and retailcloud products can help you to make it happen.
As part of the retailcloud sales team, at least 2-3 times a week I speak with a business owner who tells me that their biggest issue is staying on top of the cash flow; in fact a not to uncommon statement is that we just had a great month but I don’t know where the money went.
Managing your Cash Flow and effectively converting inventory into cash are the most important things that small business operators do. With that in mind I thought I would put together a very high level post on some basic practices on cash flow management. If you want some complexity we have other posts on managing cash flow, GMROI and sales to stock and cash to sales ratios that can take you to the next level but this for the basics.
Let’s begin by taking that money and putting it into some piles
Paying Sales Tax – this is often overlooked, but start first by running your sales tax settlement reports and put that aside for the tax man – there is no getting around that. While you are doing that, make sure that the amount you are reserving is in line with what your sales are – often items are not properly set up in your system and you may have neglected to collect the correct taxes.
Paying your Employees – Look at your time clock reports and forecast what you need to pay your employees, remember to carefully set aside withholding amounts and any other employer contributions. These are monies that you don’t want flowing into your operating accounts.
Keep your doors Open – Know what your fixed costs are (Rent, Utilities, Business Operation Fees) and prorate them so you are setting aside enough to cover these fixed expenses. Having accurate projections will allow you to forecast what your minimum sales are on a daily basis to cover overhead.
Replacing your Inventory – Finally set aside enough to replace your inventory, if you are buying on account you will need to pay your vendors and if you are paying on delivery you need to keep your items stocked at optimum levels. While doing this, consider what you stock on hand is and determine if you are better off investing in complementary products. Have a look at our posts on Increasing per Unit Sales.
See what’s left over – This is for you if there is not enough to go around, you only have a few choices
These are 4 simple checkpoints – having these good practices will help you build a strong and profitable business. The majority of business failures occur due to poor cash management.
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.
Liquor store POS (Point of Sale Systems) is an important tool to make sure operations runs smooth and seamless. Store managers have a great deal of responsibility to make sure that everything from catalog, inventory, and customer experience are handled flawlessly. As a software provider for numerous liquor stores across the country and talking to several business owners & store managers we have identified some of the most common aspects one should consider for a liquor store inventory management and point of sale system.
A Liquor Store POS (Point of Sale) system helps businesses streamline their operations, improve customer service, and enhance profitability. By integrating sales, inventory management, and customer data, a POS system allows liquor store owners to efficiently track sales in real time, manage stock levels, and prevent inventory shortages or overstocking. It automates the process of updating inventory with each sale, reducing human error and saving time. Additionally, a POS system enables businesses to offer loyalty programs, discounts, and promotions, enhancing customer satisfaction and retention. Reporting features within the system allow business owners to track sales trends, monitor profit margins, and make informed decisions to optimize pricing and product offerings. Moreover, the system often integrates with accounting software, making financial management easier and more accurate. Overall, a liquor store POS system is an essential tool for improving operational efficiency, boosting sales, increasing UPT and providing a better customer experience.
These 12 features are generally classified into these functional areas.
When a liquor store adopts a modern point of sale system, one of the challenges they have is how to load the product catalog. In some instances, the store hasn’t tracked products and inventory in the past, moving from a legacy cash register or simply starting a business from a buyout. A key problem in all of the above cases is lack of product tracking through an automated system. Retailcloud’s global catalog with over 50K liquor products allows an user to adopt the system seamlessly and get up and running in no time.
It is not an easy job to track inventory for all the products when you have a busy season and when your focus should be to sell more. Retailcloud inventory management module tracks the products across your business right from issuing purchase orders , receiving into the stores and managing inventory automatically into your location when you sell. Every business owner we have talked to has mentioned that accurate inventory tracking is one of the top 3 priorities they have with a new point of sale system.
With the variety of options within the liquor catalog management, one of the common struggles that liquor store managers have is how should they enter cases and packs into the system. Can I buy by the case and sell individually and get an accurate inventory? The solution to do this effectively is to have different units of measure available allowing for accurate reporting of inventory regardless of how you sell it.
Cash discounting has been one of the most sought out features in recent times. This allows the business owner to manage the payment processing cost more effectively in creative ways. The retailcloud system allows merchants to setup cash discounts, rebates for certain payments types and print on receipts.
Experts who advise liquor store operations says that the best way to have a profitable liquor store is to keep track of your profit goals. To effectively keep track of the profit it is important for a store to have tools to manage the cost of inventory and thus by reporting it back to you across your business. Many cost management systems do not provide accurate cost of good sold data. I have seen systems that update all items in inventory to the current cost price wreaking havoc on managing true cost of goods. A system which effectively calculate the weighted average cost and provide you with effective profit margins and KPI is very important. Retailcloud’s cost management and nGauge analytics platform provides these insights without additional plugins or 3rd party softwares.
Multiple employees are very common in liquor stores and having the tools to manage their sales as well as providing security against theft and abuse of the system . Have unique log ins and password/pin entry is a key necessity. Knowing which employee is ringing up the sale as well as limiting access for non key employees are among the features needed.
As a business owner one of the challenges faced is the level or access which can be provided to different employees and temporary staff. Well defined roles in the system with commonly accessed features and ability to promote or demote certain function is very handy in liquor store multi employee situations. Retailcloud POS provides unlimited users access across 10 different roles.
Age and ID verifications are important when you have mix and match of a variety of products. Automated prompts of Age and ID verification allows the cashiers verify the customers for the ID based on product category or scan on the Code Scanner for programmable beeps.
Ability to access the reports anywhere is one thing which every system should have in the 21st century. The global access to Sales and Inventory reporting anywhere anytime is key for business owners to analyze their business / profit strategies at their own time.
Irrespective of any type of business, one thing retailers across the globe will agree on is that they need ways to engage with their customers. One of the most common ways to do this is offering promotions and loyalty programs. Starting with simple discounts which can be announced through your weekly mailer or reward your most visited customers with loyalty programs can be useful tools to ensure that your customers think of your business first.
Customer engagement strategies varies from time to time. Purchase history and customer engagement drives those strategies. Ability to see the sales history and sales analysis helps businesses to better and more effectively engage with customers. VIP Clubs or Demographic based promotions are likely to improve the customer visits.
Most liquor store staff interacts on POS one way or other. Without additional software or subscription, the business owners can track employee time within the POS which is a very useful way to track the attendance. Attendance can be monitored remotely or overridden by supervisors as needed.
Checkout out retailcloud’s Liquor Store Point of Sale Features list here to learn more
Let me start by says that a product return isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Based on a six-year study from the University of North Carolina’s Flagler Business School, the study looked at the return rates from various companies. And it turns out that there’s actually a “sweet spot” that equates to higher profits per customer sales. One company was found to have a magic number of 13 percent!
But a product return may not go the way merchants want. As reported in The Wall Street Journal, that same research showed numbers that were greater than this percentage actually decreased profits. And it signaled deeper, structural problems within the company itself. It could be a strict return policy or poor record keeping from accounting. Either way, these problems can lead to dissatisfied customers, increased chargebacks and much more.
I’d like to provide four simple tips that should help your business prevent excessive returns
Allow your customers to fully experience your merchandise. Touching, Tasting, Feeling – your customers can make a more informed decision, which will minimize returns.
Many times such returns are the result of a retailer carrying a product that doesn’t have the features customers demand. They may still buy it, but the end result will typically be a return.
The best way to find out what the customers want is to ask them. Salespeople will also have great insight as to what customers are asking for that a store isn’t carrying. Paying attention to the responses and acting on them will help minimize returned merchandise. Keeping tabs on the competition can also be useful.
“With tight payrolls and a large turnover of associates, displays are more important than ever before,” says Tom Hebrock, vice president of retail services at Stuart and Associates in Brentwood, Tenn. “This is what the customer relies on if they can’t get employee assistance in the store.”
Displays need to have consistent information for one type of product. The sign also needs to include accessories that are needed but not included so the customer doesn’t get home expecting what’s not there.
Informative displays will also help store personnel communicate the benefits and features of the products they are selling. While it would be nice for associates to memorize every feature of every product, the expectation is unrealistic, and detailed displays will assist them in selling.
Follow these tips to prevent excessive returns so that you can operate in the Sweet Spot of customer returns.
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
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
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.
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.
Manage your inventory for single location or multi location with retailcloud A920. Inventory is managed automatically as the products are sold from your stores.
A920 can accept all modern secure payment technologies such as EMV, MSR and Tap Payment.
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
In retail location matters, and brick and mortar retailers spend a lot of time and resources in getting new customers to walk in their stores, but that is just the beginning; keeping customers coming back is the key to operating a successful retail operation. Here are some tips on how to do that
Let’s start here, keep reminding them where they are – have associates greet them by using your store name “ Welcome to (store name); Can I help you find something?” Remind them where they are whenever possible – Thank you for shopping at (store name); try to use shopping bags, digital receipts where your store name is prominently displayed. Whenever possible use preprinted hangtags or if you don’t want to invest in them – try a stamp or sticker with your name and logo.
Here is a low-cost value add for your customers, have associates be aware of surprising customers with random acts of kindness (I don’t mean give away free product or discounts) – taking time to carefully package items, spending a little more time to make sure the customer experience is curated for the customer.
Provide accurate information to the customer or product availability. Give associates the tools to know what’s in stock, what’s on the way in and when it can be expected. Pay particular attention to your product mix and train your associates on complimentary and replacement product.
Loyalty and club programs (especially experienced based ones) are the cornerstone of retail – Club programs can range from simple pricing discounts like grocery stores offer or experience-based ones that many airlines focus on. One of my favorite example of a club program is a neighborhood restaurant who has a point system for visits and once you get to a certain level – they guarantee you a table anytime – I’ve seen them set up temporarily set up tables for their top customers even when fully sold out – I’m sure that those customers feel the restaurant always value their relationship.
Last but by no means least
Consumers want easy access to their favorite stores, have an online site that has accurate information on products and inventory levels (ideally connected to your inventory system) and tied to your POS (so customers have one view into all their activity). This allows customers to view product, make purchases and even process returns at their convenience.
Keep the shopping process simple yet enriching is what will keep them coming back. Keep reminding the customer where they are (frequency of impression is real) and have your associates stay focused on providing a quality experience. These are some simple yet inexpensive ways in driving return activity.
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.
The POS needs to be able to sell items in decimal places and return inventory levels in decimal places for accurate accountability.
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.
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:
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.
There are over 42,000 liquor stores in the US! This is an industry with very specific and unique requirements and not just any POS will do. When selecting a Point of Sale for Liquor Stores everything begins with Inventory Management, from handling a large number of items, pre-loading catalogs and case management. Inventory visibility and reporting is only rivaled by speed of use and reliability of the point of sale hardware. POS equipment should be sturdy and capable of handling the high activity that’s prevalent in this segment. Tablets while small and compact do not provide the power and reliability for liquor store usage. Centralized reporting and proper cost management is also key as individuals frequently own multiple stores or are in buying groups where they may even want to share certain information about sales and inventory.
These are broad areas and the need of liquor stores are varied, however here is a list of 12 must have things, when looking at point of sale solutions for liquor stores.
Inventory management by Cases & Bulk – Be able to purchase your inventory by the case and easily track and reorder, as you sell by the case, 6 pack or single
Preloaded inventory catalog with items and classifications – This will save time setting up your POS as you have the items already added and ready to sell. Prices should be modifiable upon first ring up to update to your selling prices
Print barcode and shelf labels – Easily print our product labels and shelf labels (including reviews) so that customers have current pricing and adequate information to make informed buying decisions
Upload catalog and price changes from supplier to support automated ordering and PO management – Using the current pricing catalog from your supplier, automatically modify selling prices
Flexible pricing options to allow for single, multi packs and mix and match scenarios – Inventory comes in all shapes and sizes and you need to be able to sell it (and price it) for the various ways that your customers want to make their purchases
Automated VIP and club pricing – Define the discounts for your VIP and club members and automatically apply the discount at the register
Item or transaction discounts by category or quantity – Create the discounts that work best for you with date range flexibility, quantity discounts and automatic discounts applied to categories
Reorder level reporting and purchase order module – Make inventory ordering more accurate and save time with the predictive reorder and purchase order modules
Centralized reporting for multi store multi owner environments – Have the tools to manage and report for the entire enterprise or individual stores, with sales tax and pricing set by location if desired
Employee management with time and attendance, pin or password based logins – Have the tools to manage your employees with role based individual logins and clock in/out from the POS
Remote Management with alerts for monitoring key function access and use by employees – It’s key for owners and managers to know what’s going on in a store while at another location or away from the business. Your POS system should offer mobile access to key analytics and sales data as well as emailed alerts that when events you specify occur (such as cash drawer limited reached or price changes)
Ability to use the credit card processor of your choice – Dont let your POS system provider tie you in to a specific credit card processor. Make sure that you have the ability to chose the provider that you want to work with.
Making sure that your POS System can handle these functions on an easy to learn system that’s scalable as your business grows, is key to selecting the POS that’s right for your liquor store.
Inventory Management is the heart of retailers effort to manage their assets. It can be disastrous if they are not approached properly. A lot of retailers rely on the tools mainly on their point of sale systems or retail management systems. In some cases point of sale do not provide what they wanted or they tend to rely on other third party tools to manage these assets. You can simply rely on a spreadsheet or a very complex enterprise grade systems which gives tons of options ( a lot of time it comes with increased complexity ) or it can be like the tools which retailcloud provides which balances simplicity and usability.
Ultimately it should focus on
Here are 5 ways to make Inventory Management easy
This is one of the key first step to have a clean inventory. This is important not only for management but for visibility & discovery.
Once you have a good organisation of the product, it is always easy to look into your inventory and sort, filter through your product whichever software or tools you may use.
Right tools are important for the job. Inventory management doesn’t just end with adding or updating product , counting product. So it is important to have the right tool for the job. retailcloud provide various tools on POS, Web and mobile which can be chosen for your convenience . For some mobile may be convenient and it may be desktop for others.
A few examples of tools which may help
It is always good to have good business process tied to your retail management. This can be when an inventory is brought into the location, moved between locations or if you have to account for damages. If you do not have any of these processes or not used to any of these don’t worry we have built workflows right into retailcloud tools so that you don’t have to do the heavy lifting.
Example of a few workflow process are
If you have a custom workflow you can achieve this by leveraging our API’s . Check with us how we can help you to improve your inventory management
It is always good to extra set of eyes to know what is going on with your inventory . The smart way to do is through notifications, alerts and approval management process
Retailers that participated in the 2016 NRSS say that employee/internal theft amounted to 35.8 percent of inventory shrink in 2015. The report also found that the average loss of dishonest employee cases dropped from $1,546.83 to $1,233.77
retailcloud provides various alerts for tools for configuring the alerts at various roles and a permission based feature activation.
In addition to this a more Actionable alerts like below will provide better insights to their inventory
Last but not the least measure your inventory or use tools which provide insights about inventory. Any of the above mentioned ways are not relevant if you don’t measure and have a good idea about how you should sell your existing inventory.
retailcloud provide various tools to get you insights. Some of the amazing tools are
Change is the only permanent thing that brings along improvement, though quite hard to accept for most people. However, it is inevitable especially when you clearly know it will be beneficial to you and especially your business. When starting a small business, you require POS software that will improve your customer service. The customer is king, and therefore we need to keep them happy. The point of sale system your small business can help you improve your customer service in the following ways:
POS software provides a detailed real-time account of sales for all customers.
This will allow you, as the business owner, to analyze which customers purchase what products and in what quantities. This helps you to be able to offer discounts to their clients. Also, you can access customer trends or history and reports of their transactions,
Give your customers what they want
The primary component of excellent customer service is giving the customer the product that they want. It is important to know the reorder level in your small business to avoid stock outs. The POS software will always notify you when you hit the reorder level. It will also help you to see the products that are fast movers to avoid the dead stock, which are a waste of time, space, and money. With a cloud-based system, you can run numerous reports that highlight the top selling items. This will help you to make wise decisions, which will keep your customers happy.
The point of sale for small businesses improves levels of efficiency
POS software allows you to spend less time on paperwork, sales record keeping, accounting, and inventory management, as well as managing such programs as marketing and special advertising. This helps you focus more on your customers. It ensures that you have enough time to handle your customer complaints and concerns efficiently and as quickly as possible.
Improved speed
A long queue is not exactly what your clients want. The sight of 5-6 people waiting to check out is enough to make a customer run for the door. A reliable POS software will minimize the time customers spend at the register and will eliminate human error by employees. Small business owners can organize menu items on their computers based on the category and make ‘hot keys’. Slow transactions or inventory errors will no longer be an issue. POS software providers now offer integrated barcode scanning which increases speed and efficiency. This method eliminates manual entry and gives fast transactions. This keeps your customers happy as you generate more profits.
Flexible payment options
It is important for small businesses to have several flexible payment methods. The days of carrying huge sums of cash have since expired. Luckily, the point of sale for small businesses has made it easier than ever, for business owners to accept just about any payment method. These include; checks, cash, credit card, gift cards EMV chip cards and apple pay. Customers will be happy with all these payment methods and will always come to your business.
Today, getting customers is very hard for most companies, but keeping them is very easy. Customer loyalty mainly focuses on incentives to your current customer base so as to make more purchases. This kind of interaction is aimed at building trust and the desire in the customers to maintain a relationship with you. Most companies today achieve this through customer loyalty programs.
Competition among businesses today has led to most companies putting in real energy and effort to maintain a consistent customer base. A great product does not mean that the customers will come back for more unless you gain the customer’s loyalty. Below are some effective ways to building customer loyalty.
All these are just some of the effective ways that will ensure you build customer loyalty to your business. The success of any business can be determined by the size of the customer base and building customer loyalty gives you a large customer base that the business needs.
Are you a vape shop owner that wants to improve managing and tracking the different brands and juices that you are selling? Are the upcoming regulations keeping you up at night as you wonder how to handled the imposed changes? These are just two of issues facing vape business owners today. Vape store owners should be aware of all the options to help smoothly run their business.
retailcloud, a Windows and Android cloud-based POS solution, is your answer. Why? It has the many features that vape store owners will find that retailcloud has the solutions to help with the issues unique to their industry in order to make their business work. Here are just a few of the essential elements that retailcloud can provide you with:
Vape store merchants should be aware of the essential elements that should be present in their POS solution in order to have a successful business. With retailcloud’s solution, you will be on the right path.
For more information about our POS solution, email us at support@retailcloud.com.
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.
Having a small retail business can be overwhelming if you have a traditional stand-alone point of sale terminal. A retail business can be more profitable if one is using a point of sale system. The system will be able to manage the stock, handle purchases, place orders when the stock is about to get replenished and so forth. The time when buying POS hardware was hard for small retail businesses is far gone. Thanks to advance in technology, there is free POS software that is readily available for businesses. It is very easy to acquire a point of sale system today at a low price. If you have a tablet, you can download free POS software and install it on your device. You can even have a tablet point of sale system. This is POS software that is installed on a tablet.
The right thing with the tablet point of sale is that your staff can approach customers where they are. They don’t have to wait for customers at the terminal. The staff can assist the customer in making a decision about an individual item and then make a purchase for it directly where they are. This will ultimately increase sales. According to a study, customers are more likely to buy an item when they are making a decision on whether to purchase the item or not. It is easier to convince them to purchase the item before they move from where the item is.
Small businesses should be concerned about the kind of POS hardware and software they are using. The best inventory software will alert you before the stock runs out. This way you can place an order and still have stock to sell before the order arrives. There are free POS systems which are very integrated. They will keep historical data on sales and estimate when there is likely to be a low stock condition. This kind of system can also place an order for certain inventory just in case it runs out.
If you are a small business retailer, make sure that you get the best POS hardware and software there is in the market. This will increase the sales revenue for your business in an amazing way. The POS can manage your business, and this makes things easier for you and your staff. Remember taking stock and keeping track of it is the most time consuming and labor intensive job. It is one of the most important things in a retail business. Having too much stock or too little stock is risky for the business. However, this will not be a problem if you have the best inventory software in your point of sale system.
Small retail businesses should be more concerned about how well they manage their stock and how safe they are from running out of stock. The retail business should also be concerned about gaining trust with their customers. The customers will be more confident when entering their credit card details at a point of sale system rather than a person’s mobile phone. If you are a small business retail owner, invest in a good POS system and you will have an easy time while managing your business
A point of sale system is the lifeline of small business operations. A Point of Sale system used to be a very expensive and serious undertaking for a business to get this sort of system. But today that has changed thanks to advances in technology almost everyone can acquire and set up their POS systems very quickly. Today, small businesses don’t have to depend on the stand alone terminals to handle point of sale transactions. There is software in the market that can turn your computer or tablet into a point of sale terminal and it is easy and most of this software is free. Remember that having a good point of sale system means that you can get better insights into your business, and it can also help you keep track of what your customers prefer which in turn will help you boost sales magnificently. The best POS system should be affordable and easy to use. It should be integrated such that it can do more than just accept payments and process sales.
A good POS system must have an inventory management system or an inventory program. This will help you take a good look at your stock anytime you need it without having to go to the store. It should record how much of the stock is in the store and depending on the sales data; it should be able to estimate the period which that stock will last. Anytime the stock runs low, the point of sales system should alert you that you need to acquire more stock as soon as possible. The inventory management system should be up to date all the time to avoid issues of failure. Remember if an inventory management system fails, there is a risk of your retail business going out of stock without your knowledge. For the small business retailer, the inventory management system is not complicated and it is very easy to keep up with at all times.
Your retail business should always be safe stock wise if you are using a point of sale management system. The inventory program should look at the historical data of sales and use it to predict when a low stock condition might hit your retail business. It should also be able to create orders for replenishment on low stock conditions. Remember the point of sale might not be so complex as to send an order to the supplier directly. However, it will print out an order request for you asking you to order more stock before a particular time.
A retail business is best run by a point of sale management system. Don’t let your business run on the traditional stand-alone terminals. A POS system is a tool that will increase your sales revenue. Also based on the kind of system it is and how integrated the system is, it should be able to help you market the business increasing the number of customers.
A layaway program is a kind of a plan where the consumer pays for merchandise in parts. The consumer will not take the merchandise home with them until the full payments are made. This is an advantage to consumers, instead of buying on credit and the price being higher because of the interest. The store will hold the merchandise while at the same time keeping a record of how the customer is paying for it. Once they make full payments, the company releases the merchandise for them, and the customer takes the delivery. One advantage of a layaway program is that there is an assurance that the chosen merchandise will be in stock and ready for delivery when the item is fully paid for. This can come as an advantage to consumers who buy merchandise that runs out of stock quickly, and they don’t have the money to buy it instantly.
For a layaway program to work efficiently, the business must have a good layaway point of sale. The POS system will keep a record of how many customers are paying for their layaway programs and how they are paying them. Remember a customer can shop for different items in the business and at the same time he has a layaway plan for an individual item in the same business. A layaway program is beneficial to both the retailer and the customer.
The POS software should be able to keep track of the stock that customers are paying layaway programs for. The POS system should calculate the amount of stock remaining based on the data of the customers paying layaway programs. If the stock that is remaining can only fit the layaway program customers, the POS system will alert you that there is going to be a low stock condition and make the order for more stock. A good layaway point of sale should not sell stock that is already on the layaway plan. This is because the customer is expecting to find the stock in place after making full payments of the item.
Layaway programs help businesses compete by installing trust in their customers. The customer is always assured that the item they are paying for will be waiting for them in stock after they finish paying. This way the customers are more likely to be shopping in the same place to keep in check with their layaway programs. When a customer goes for shopping, they will always remember the store they made a deal with in a layaway program and they will have the feeling of honoring the store by visiting more often.
A layaway program is kept in track by the layaway point of sale. If you have an inadequate and ineffective POS system, your layaway program will fail terribly. Acquire a good point of sale system that will keep track of the layaway programs payments and coordinate that with the stock. The program is an advantage to most of the retailers in that it allows them to offer products to low-income customers. The customer will consider this like a savings plans where they will not fail to pay when the time comes.
retailcloud is happy to introduce a new Zero POS hardware bundle. The package couples the immense power of Zero POS, a free cloud-based Android point-of-sale software deployment and strong hardware integration. This hardware is comprised of a Samsung Galaxy tablet, EMV reader, socket scanner, Star Micronics receipt printer, cash drawer and Stabile Pro pivot stand. From every standpoint, the system is holistic, seamless, and practical. However, that isn’t all as it offers unmatched flexibility and reliability that is simply absent in traditional POS systems.
But at the core of this bundle are two components that are a formidable force to reckon with: Star’s WiFi integration (drawer and thermal printer) and Stabile Pro pivot stand. Without the two, the bundle ceases to offer its incredible flexibility and tenacity. I must admit: right from the outset, I was amazed by Thought Out’s ingenuity and total engineering.
Finding the right mounting solution for a tablet-based POS system can be an uphill task. Thought Out’s Stabile Pro is quite a sight. From every dimension, the pivot stand is a total work of American engineering. They come in two colors: black-on-black and black-on-silver.
For all POS aficionados out there, TSP100III thermal printer is a must-have. What’s all the fuss about TSP100III? Well, for starters, it operates entirely on Wi-Fi. That is, its entire connection with the drawer, scanner, reader, and tablet is fully wireless.
By far and large, its “push” and “connect” capability deliver unmatched options that are poised to bring even the most grounded retails on board. Other notable features include complimentary Star SDK, robust auto-cutter, rapid-print technology, and so forth. In all, the thermal printer makes the bundle a worthy investment for anyone looking to garner an industry’s best POS system.
With the thermal printer, this drawer by industry’s leader Star Micronics works seamless and without any hassle associated with traditional POS hardware. The drawer offers unrivaled security, fast turnaround times, and sturdy feel. In yet another elegant, smart design appeal, Stabile Pro takes the steel to a surprisingly miniature point right beneath the ball joint, accentuating the immense strength of the metal. Thought Out also offers another option in the form of a cable manager right above the ball joint. That is if you need your tablet to operate upside-down. By integrating the great power of Zero POS as well as amazing new hardware, retailcloud aims to provide a POS system that will offer small businesses an easier way to handle their day-to-day POS.
Sign up for your free retaicloud account here. If you have any questions on this bundle of account setup please click the chat button to connect to an Implementation Specialist or email us at support@retailcloud.com
Often the butt of jokes, CVS Pharmacy has always had a ridiculously long printed receipt. They recently announced that they will be offering digital receipts to their reward members (and in the process save thousands of trees).
In an era when in many cases customers are even digitizing their payment and loyalty cards, the notion of a printed receipt is becoming obsolete. Especially a printed receipt that is so long and crowded with information it becomes a source of jokes for late night TV hosts. CVS is taking what should be a universal step of allowing customers to opt out of printed receipts, at least if they are committed enough to join a loyalty program. After all, loyalty programs are supposed to make the shopping experience better, not more burdensome.” DAN BERTHIAUME, Chain Store Age.
Many customers prefer the digital receipt so that it cannot get lost if needed for a future return of merchandise and ease of check out. Retailers look for ways to enhance the customer experience and offering digital receipts is just one additional way to accomplish this.
An added advantage to offering digital receipts is that you are building your customer database, as you now have your customer’s email address. This will allow you to deploy targeted marketing based on your customers buying habits and further enhance their experience with your store, as you cater to their purchasing needs.
Digital receipts have always been a standard feature of retailcloud’s POS products and retailers have been enjoying the benefits for years. The feature is easy to implement (check the box to enable on your device) and use (the cashier is prompted for digital receipt at the end of the transaction).
Going one step further, is the Enhanced Digital Receipt (shown) available on any retailcloud device as an Add On Feature. Not only does the customer have sales transaction information, they also have recommended items that are aimed specifically towards the customer. This Enhanced Receipt allows for a review of the products and further engages the customer with your business and your product line. If used with the retailcloud eCommerce integration, click on a recommended item to easily make another sale.
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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