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
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.
Each year, over $1 trillion worth of goods and services are shipped by businesses across the globe with help of different order fulfillment technologies and strategies.
But not all companies can afford to hire a call center or follow up on every order manually. This problem is especially severe for growing e-commerce companies and smaller brick-and-mortar stores. As a result, many owners turn to humans who work at home as virtual assistants (VA). These operatives answer customer calls or handle orders that come into their inboxes via email or automated voice system; however, there’s one simple step they often neglect: little things like storing the information about each order in your database.
Instead of sticking to these traditional methods of order fulfillment, retail stores should consider the latest and improved solutions. The use of affordable online ordering solutions and many other advanced solutions can make the whole process a lot more efficient and easier. Here are a few steps that retail stores should implement for easier online order fulfillment:
There is one thing that most modern order fulfillment systems have in common: better and faster communication with customers. With these solutions, each retailer can build its own website and integrate it with the most popular online shopping carts and inventory management systems. They can even make it open for mobile devices, thus making the whole process of order fulfillment easier and more pleasant for the customers.
Many online retail companies still stick to traditional ways of showing off their products to customers by posting them on a website or sending brochures in mailboxes. They do not realize that every new customer is an opportunity to expand your business and generate more sales. Instead of wasting time and effort on paper, coupons, and other marketing materials, online retailers should integrate a fully automated voice system in their ordering software.
Customers love being informed about their order’s progress, but many retail stores have not yet adopted this idea. Instead of using a traditional desktop solution that sends an email to the customer when an order is placed, online shops can choose automatic notification systems that send text messages or show notifications on mobile devices within seconds after a customer enters their credit card details or selects a delivery method. The convenience provided by this technology makes users feel less rushed and generate more sales for companies.
By making these simple changes online retailers can increase their sales and cut down their costs. There is a lot to discover about improving the eCommerce order fulfilling process. It’s time for the retail store managers to adopt the new trends and strategies that can boost the business. Apart from these steps, don’t forget the shipping fees because 61% of the online shoppers abandon the shopping carts due to higher shipment charges and delivery fees.
Why do companies do it?
Reducing inventory costs is mostly based on reducing carrying costs. The carrying costs occur when your predicted sales are not in line with the reality and there are too many products left on the shelves in your store. There are simply too much costs related to inventory from costs of capital, to expired costs and handling, storage and counting inventory damage costs. Also costs for rent and electricity must be included as well.
The Well-Known Notion
The notion that in order to keep your inventory costs low, you need to keep your inventory count low as well is a well-known notion. It seems quite logical, but in reality, with use of a POS software and smart, feature-rich inventory management software you can manage to do it.
How lower Inventory and inventory costs
The first and most useful tip is to make an efficient plan. Then a strategic plan to move your slow mowing inventory is a must. Using the best inventory software can be of great help in achieving this.
Another way to lower costs is to not liquidate all of the items or to plan the liquidation better.
Liquidation is not always the best option as it can decrease revenues significantly.
Of course the most effective way in reducing inventory costs is establishing and effect inventory systems like just in time inventory. But this is not possible for all businesses. The businesses that can assure quick orders from their vendors, can significantly reduce inventory costs and keep the inventory count high.
Another interesting option is used by several popular entrepreneurs. Their companies is keeping the inventory count high and if they have many leftovers they don’t do liquidations, but instead donate the products to different charities. They later use that for creating good PR and public image, and are also doing a good deed.
Using POS software you can easily track and manage your inventory. So, at last, you can always have high inventory count when you expect huge number of sales, when you achieve a slower period, you can easily manage the inventory with your inventory management software and reduce costs.
Final Thoughts
No matter the POS software you are using, having all possible features for inventory management can be of great help. Simply, you need to find out what works best for your business. Whether it is a JIT system, or managing your inventory in various ways during different periods of the year. One thing is certain, reducing the inventory costs while keeping your inventory count high will increase your profits, because your costs will be lower and your sales will be higher.
After starting a small business, you want nothing but growth. Growth is brought about by happy customers who will come back again and this time with a friend. Point of sale software has seen many small business owners succeed. This is because it makes work easy for you in through the analysis of the retail trends of your business. As such, you can track the records of your customers.
POS software will track the retail trends of your customers. With the POS system, you will never have stock outs. The POS software has inventory control programs that will notify you or your employees once the reorder level of a product comes. Most small business owners will stock up the shops with their preferred product stocks rather than preferred customer products. Point of sale software helps you by giving you reports on what products are fast movers for which customers. This helps you to make more informed decisions when restocking.
POS software will track your customer’s data to see the most preferred methods of payment for your customer. Once you open a small business, you might be having cash as the major form of payment in your business. However, you need to accommodate those customers who cannot pay in cash. There are other different methods of payment such as credit and debit cards, checks and other forms of payment. As a small business owner, use your POS system to track methods of payments of your customers to ensure that they are always available.
A good POS system will help you track who your best customers are and what they like. With the customer’s purchase history report available at the cash register. As such, the owner of a small business will be able to notify their customers when restocking of their favorite products has been made. POS System also helps in the quick query with a barcode scan on the availability of a product as the customer is inquiring.
Good point of sale software will help increase sales in your small business. This is achieved through improvement of customers experience in your business. One of the most important aspects of sales improvement in business is giving customers what they want and need. With a POS system, you can quickly collect and keep track of customer preferences and buy history. You can also include details like the customer personal taste, allergies, aversions and other information. This information helps the business better their target markets when campaigning and up sell at the point of sale. It also helps to cater offerings to individuals or groups of customers to improve the customer experience.
POS software helps you to track the most loyal customers. It also gives you the degree of loyalty and therefore leaves you more informed on how to maximize your profits with these customers. It classifies the customers who have the most impact on the point of sale, those who are likely to come back, and those who are not worthy of the time and effort to pursue. Combine all this with loyalty programs, rewards, and gift cards all built into your POS system and you will have a return customer powerhouse.
What is layaway?
Many retailers used this feature to attract customer instead of discount, and in many cases, it is indeed a great option. When a product is on a layaway, your customers can pay in smaller increments. These payments can go from 8-12 weeks and are a great way to get new customers and make them returning customers if you respect the layaway process.
How it can work better than discounting
First of all you wouldn’t use the revenue you usually give when discounting. Second of all, payments over few months are attractive to customers as they can get expensive products and are most likely to buy your products that are higher priced.
Additionally, if you have a good point of sale system, with layaway point of sale features included, it is much easier to manage these products and organize the layaway process. With a good POS system, they can be easily tracked and registered in your sales.
Customers satisfaction is also bigger because there isn’t any interest in layaway, like there is in their credit cards. So, in a way it is a two-way street, you benefit because you won’t lose money giving various discounts for your products, and customers can plan and spread their payments to fit their budget.
Layaway is a great option for businesses that sell products that cost more than $200 or $300, or simply products that require bigger portion of the family budgets. Instead of discounts, offering any type of product on layaway will increase the sales potential.
Another great option for using layaways instead of discounting is that it will spare you from many unpleasant situations that can create a bad image around your store. Often, retailers, are making desperate moves and giving false or extremely small discount just to get new customers. These attempts often are ending bad and many customers just start to have bad opinion about the business utilizing these types of bad discounts.
Maybe the best combination is using both discounting and layaway. Huge retailers like Wallmart and ToysRUs are already using layaways for a reason, they are seeing much more profit and revenue with the use of layaways.
Layaway point of sale
Although our POS software includes the layaway feature, not all POS systems have it. Usually, the layaway is included in the inventory settings of the POS systems. The layaway option is given after a product is purchased. When you manage the invoice of a certain product you’ve sold, there should be options that you can manage and one of them is layaway. When you select layaway, the product will be put in that category and you will be all set. POS System that includes layaway can give you great revenue and management option.
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.
Having a POS system is the best thing that can ever happen to your business. It manages almost everything in your business and you are left with a little to keep up with. Thanks to advances in technology, the POS systems are becoming easier to acquire for any business. In the past, people used stand-alone terminals in their businesses because a point of sale system was very expensive to get. Today, however, things have changed and you can even use your phone or your tablet as a point of sale system. You will just have to get POS software and install it on your device. There is free POS software, and you can still buy an advanced POS system. No business today is limited by its size or profits when it comes to a point of sale system. A point of sale system reduces the amount of work that has to be done in business. It almost reduces every job by half.
A point of sale system can also help in employee management. Employee management is an essential element of a well-run retail business. It allows you as the owner of the business or the manager to keep track of your employees’ hours. The employees will clock in and clock out of the system when they report to work and when they leave respectively. It comes with modules that have the clock in and clocks out features. If an employee forgets to clock back in after their break, the time can be modified by the manager or the supervisor and make the required correction. This helps to efficiently keep track of the hours employees are working. There are more advanced point of sale systems that can assign sales commissions to the employees. You won’t have to worry about who worked overtime and for how many hours because your POS software has you covered on that. It also provides employees with a very easy access to their schedules.
The data that is collected by the POS system helps in producing a hustle free payroll. Everything is set from the number of regular hours an employee has worked combined with all the overtime hours and the sales commissions. This makes it easier to draft a payroll. The POS system will do this by consolidating and sorting the data for every employee. It then prints out the results as a payroll. No more guessing how much to pay your employees or getting confused on the commissions they have. The point of sale system gives reports on a daily or weekly basis, so it is hard to lose track. If you want incentivize your employees, the point of sale system will help you. It will help you know the top seller every month, and you can award them with a bonus. This is difficult to do without a POS system.
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.
Do you feel like your POS resembles the ancient, bulky cash register from the early 2000s or do you have a tablet POS system that you installed two years ago that is not even able to show you customer purchase history? Do you feel like there could be a solution out there that can truly simplify the tasks of running your retail store? Now is the time to look into the advances that are now available and affordable for the small to mid-size shop.
Retailers today most likely do not want to stay late after closing, checking off what products have been sold that day on an excel sheet, or worse, by hand on a piece of paper. Switching to more efficient POS systems will help benefit your small business by not only making your life and your employees lives easier, but also contributing to higher profits and creating better customer satisfaction.
Not convinced? Well, here are some more reasons why you should keep your POS system updated:
These are just a few of multiple other reasons why you should update your POS system today. So, what are you waiting for? Go update your POS now!
Everyday, consumers are constantly on the look-out for products that are new and sometimes old. With this in mind, merchants have to consistently update their inventory. This can be an extremely tedious task, especially if there are products going in and out of the store daily.
Managing inventory can be quite laborious, especially for small business owners as they would have to keep track of their products through maybe excel sheets. This can be quite exhausting since the merchant could be dealing with the inflow and outflow of products all at once. Organization of inventory is of ultimate significance because it helps calculate and keep track of the numerous point of sales that occur in a single day.
Keeping track of inventory for any small business retailer is a large single investment. Inventory management is crucial for small business POS because it helps the user understand which of their products are selling and which are not. With proper inventory management, the operator is allowed to keep their investment in a product at a minimum while providing a large range of options to their customer. Aside from keeping track of what products are selling and which are not, the merchant can also keep an eye out on the current retail trends at their POS. This can definitely aid in strategizing their small business more.
Currently, in order to help inventory management come at an ease for small business merchants, there are inventory softwares available, especially through the cloud. Using cloud inventory management software allows operators to see what is selling through multiple sources, such as in their brick & mortar stores, their web stores and mobile applications. Through this, users are able to manage and analyze their product mix from any location by using a secure software that can only be accessed by themselves!
One of the key aspects of retail cloud POS and inventory programs is to provide small business retailers with customer data that was inputted at the time the POS was established. Its secure inventory management software is able to collect customer data as well as everyday store activities that create an impact at small businesses. After collecting this information, the merchant can determine how he or she can better improve their sales and know what the current retail trend is.
Inventory management programs are critical for POS. If you are still managing inventory manually or through excel sheets, it is time for a new upgrade as times are certainly changing just as the inventory for your business.
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
Saturday was a typically busy day, the farmers market across the street always brings in a lot of lookers. With our new shared goals of encouraging customers to sign up for our promotion list and to focus on units per transaction I found the team more social with customers. It was a much friendlier and energetic atmosphere which in turn made people linger longer and talk more about the displays. I made a note to be more aware of my traffic patterns, next Saturday I was going to pull out the counter.
The associates liked the ability to check the POS to look for products and stock levels, and had some great ideas on how to improve the classification of the product. Having color as an attribute was clearly something that they wanted. We opened the portal and made those changes as they came up directly on the system.During the day I checked the phone app and saw that we our average units per transaction were just below 2, I had nothing to measure it to as we have never tracked it before.
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Finally, a winning POS combination that everyone can use!
Zero POS and Star mPOP flexible powerful and beautiful!
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Zero POS was designed to be the ideal merchant solution, beautifully designed, simple to implement, simple to use and priced perfectly. All that was missing was a hardware solution that matched its principles and ideals; and then suddenly Zero saw mPOP; it was love at first site.
What’s a mPOP you ask?
Its an an all-in-one POS Solution! Star Micronic’s mPOP is to POS what combination VCR TV’s were to the 90’s! Still thinking about what that means? The mPOP is a combined cash drawer, printer and tablet POS hub. Its sleek, streamlined look is refreshing in a world of clunky, noisy, cash drawers that take up valuable counter space. Best of all it is designed, manufactured and supported by Star, a company with a long history in providing reliable hardware solutions to retailers. Pair this station with a Samsung tablet and retailcloud tabPOS software and you have yourself an updated point of sale location that is bound to satisfy any retailer.
When we first saw Star’s mPOP solution in their early development stage we were impressed by its footprint, look and potential affordable price point. From that time it was a constant commitment from Star’s Product team , their belief in retailcloud solutions and follow up which got things exciting. We were also able to get our hands on an early pre-production version which was important for us to build and test for viability.
The Integration of Zero POS with mPOP is important because Zero POS is the only solution which offers a full fledged mobile POS Solution for such a great price; zero dollars per month for the software.
– Sign Up for ZeroPOS & get ready with your account (5 min)– Turn on your mPOP Hardware (under 1 sec)– Pair the mPOP hardware in bluetooth settings (under 1 min)– Choose the paired bluetooth mpop in the Zero POS hardware settings (under 2 min)
– QSR or espresso bar type environment when you want to pair it with many Start Printers (LAN)– Clienteling scenarios to allow associates on the floor with tablets to communicate both the customer and with the mPOP at the cash wrap
– The looks – These have a techy modern look that suggest your business embraces cutting edge technology. Customers love seeing new technology especially in small mom and pop type stores.– Customer Impact – Shoppers feel like they get more value while shopping at a small store that has a fancy point of purchase. There’s -something special about a place that can maintain its character but also stay modern with their business side matters.– Smaller footprint – Less clutter on your counter always looks good.– Full featured – Tablet applications include all the features small and midsize retailers need.
– Screen size limitations – If you are looking for a large display, desktop solutions have better options.– Lower memory capacity – Applications will not be as robust.– Sacrifice performance – You should limit use of other applications on tablets to optimize performance.– Fewer portals to attach peripheral devices– High Volume traffic business may find that the desktop is able to process quicker
You don’t need to have a big computer on your counter to make it seem like you have a top of the line point of sale. mPOP only takes up a fraction of your counter space and paired with retailcloud, has a full lineup of features. Consider what features you need today as well as what you will need as your business grows. This will help decide what hardware solution is best for your business.. mPOP and Zero POS prove that you can deliver reliability, power, design and efficiency at a price retailers will love.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
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Our article, published in CIO Magazine November 2015
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According to various research reports, revenue from global retail PointOfSale (POS) terminals is growing at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR)of 13.37 percent. Such significant escalation indicates the growing acceptance of multichannel sales strategies including ecommerce, online advertising, and online product information, specifications, and comparisons. Despite the proliferation of latest POS technologies, “not every solution provider can effectively convert raw data into realtime actionable analytics,” begins Kevin Colaco, Founder and CEO, retailcloud. “Today’s highly evolved retailers seek an advanced POS solution that not only helps in sales enablement, but builds great customer experiences.”With these new touchpoints multiplying along path to purchase, the retail industry requires a dedicated partner capable of harmonizing the demands of both retailers and consumers. Fulfilling all of these requirements is retailcloud—a company that offers cloud-based POS solutions to enable Small and Medium Business (SMB)retailers increase sales, better managing inventory, and collect valuable data on customers’ shopping habits. “We specialize in blending cuttingedge technology with massive amounts of data to provide superior customer experiences,” says Colaco.
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The company offers three different POS applications that run on desktops, tablets, and smartphones. Apart from advocating flexibility to operate on disparate devices, the company’s applications could be used either on the floor or at the counter. “The presence of a cart with complete clienteling options makes our application absolutely useful,” expresses Colaco. Additionally, the applications are supported by Central Administrative Server (CAS),a powerful browser based portal which stores and consolidates the complete information of a merchant’s enterprise. The information includes data from distinct areas such as inventory, purchasing, consumer habits, and reporting functions. Besides these functionalities, CAS also possesses the ability to manage supply chain and predictive reordering practices of the firm. “The ability of our POS solutions to offer actionable information assists sales associates to improve operations and drive campaigns for low performing products,” explains Colaco.
Download the PDF of this Article
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Besides boosting sales operations, retailcloud leverages its domain expertise to mitigate the impediments faced by midsize businesses. “Most of the regular and medium size traders are bogged down by under performing Units Per Transaction (UPT),” remarks Colaco. retailcloud alleviates the challenge by providing realtime curated data to salespersons. “Our POS solutions provide relevant data at the point of sale and capacitate sales associates with improved margins, refined product mix, and increased UTP,” states Colaco.
Assisting the retail industry in similar ways, the company provides a holistic solution that facilitates an enterprise to launch a webstore with just a few clicks. The online store is subsequently connected to retailcloud’s backend server to garner realtime insights into stock levels. Such consistent support enables retail enterprises to update and manage inventory in a streamlined manner.
The company draws on its broad industry experience and hundreds of successful implementations to recommend retail enterprises with next best actions. Driven by its proficiency, the company has helped several customers thrive in their business environments. For instance, an online store capitalized on the prowess of retailcloud to increase their sales. “Our integrated POS solutions enabled the client to accumulate entire information in one centralized server and achieve real time actionable analytics,” extols Colaco. retailcloud plans to expand its geographical footprint by opening offices in five different continents. In addition, the company seeks to strengthen their global network by building dedicated partnerships in the retail arena. With such determined focus, retailcloud will continue to offer POS solutions that will ultimately results in promoting great customer experiences. “We believe in the power of customer relationship, as it turns browsers into buyers, and buyers into repeat customers,” Colaco ends on a strong note.
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Benefits of adopting advanced inventory control:
• Increased cash reserve
• Improved cash flow
• Safeguard against stock obsolesce
• Increase complimentary items, increasing units per transaction
• Track order to delivery to pricing variances
Optimizing your inventory levels serves many purposes, the most important being that it will increase cash reserves and improve cash flow, safeguard against stock obsolesce and allow you to extend your offerings to include complementary products.
Reorder level reporting will allow retailers to order just enough to meet their anticipated demands over a shorter frequency and can generate and transmit purchase orders to vendors. A reduction of your order frequency from Quarterly to Monthly can free up capital equal to as much as two thirds of your inventory investment.
Using the integrated purchase order function completes the cycle from creating the purchase order to receiving merchandise and printing barcode labels. Reports are provided which show cost variances and unfilled orders to keep you informed of potential issues. In addition Periodic Sales also reflect the pending PO’s making review your stock and replenishment levels a snap.
Some other things that you can do to generate better inventory control is to increase the segments or attributes that are associated with each SKU. Using attributes you can make sure you have the proper style and color mix and using segments will allow you to make sure that you have you have both a good substitute and complementary mix. Having a good product mix is key in increasing your units per transaction. Customer Activity reporting will also provide you valuable information at a customer level in predicting demand on new products.
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Get the Deal
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A few months back we started deploying EMV devices and naturally most of our existing customers and new customers prefer to buy the future proof devices and started the transition. Since then one of the most sought features was to allow them to swipe gift cards on EMV terminals. TabPOS application is being updated and Gift Card Swipe feature on the EMV devices will be available for customers starting next week.
On the other hand if you do not use gift cards and would like to use start accepting giftcard in your store during this holiday season please contact support@retailcloud.com or visit here for more details.
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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.
An excerpt from October 2015’s press release:
SOMERSET, NJ–(Marketwired – Oct 12, 2015) – With Star Micronics’ latest release of its mPOP™, Mobile Point of Purchase Solution as the first hybrid peripheral for tablet and mobile device based POS systems, industry leading ISVs (independent software vendors) have shown keen interest in incorporating this compact and sleek ‘printer and cash drawer combined‘ peripheral to their retail and hospitality software for a fully integrated POS system. ISVs create or sell software products that run on computer hardware and/or various operating systems.
Designed with unique features such as a two-inch thermal receipt printer with “Drop-In and Print” paper loading, a compact cash drawer, and enhanced cable management, the mPOP™ provides a visually appealing multi-functionality unit for small shops, cafes, florists, and bars. Simple integration and convenient Bluetooth and USB connectivity lead ISVs attracted to the mPOP™ as the ideal solution for their customers.
retailcloud (Zero POS)- voted ‘Top 10 POS solution provider in Retail CIO Magazine’, retailcloud’s “Zero POS” focuses on a retail made simple concept that enables merchants to quickly set up their POS machines in-store, easily deploy online stores, and seamlessly connect all online and offline activities. “Star mPOP™ is an excellent fit with our philosophy of retail made simple. Its clean, easy to setup design, backed by the reliability of Star, combines well with our Zero POS.” – Kevin Colaco, CEO and Founder of retailcloud “It was an amazing experience to integrate Zero POS with mPOP™ hardware. The libraries provided by Star were simple and easy to understand with good documentation and a handful of options” – Rupak Anto, Senior Product Manager
Aesthetically simple and elegant, the mPOP™ provides the ultimate point of sale solution for the new face of mPOS. For additional information, please visit the Star Micronics mPOP™ web page here.
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