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.  

8 Common POS Software Challenges and Solutions

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. 

Picking the Wrong System for Your Business

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.

Lack of Mobility

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.

Data Security Threats

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.

Manual Tracking of Promotions and Offers

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.

Time Lost on Inventory Tracking

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. 

Not Using Data and Analytics

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. 

Ecommerce Integration Disconnected from Store Ops

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. 

Ignoring Customer Insight and Feedback

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.

Cloud-based POS Systems

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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