Your POS system can act as a powerful asset to your business. It’s more than just a cash register or credit card terminal, but a tool with many great features that you can leverage to increase sales, boost foot traffic, and dramatically overhaul the efficiency of your business. How can a POS system do all of this? It depends on how you use it. The way you leverage your POS system determines exactly the outcome you’ll experience form your efforts. Here’s how to leverage that POS system in a retail environment.
- Use Those Analytics Tools
Many modern POS systems come with useful analytics tools that you can leverage to gain better insight into the numbers. Sales numbers can tell you a lot more than just how much money you’ve made for the week. You can learn about trends in your sales numbers in regards to certain times of the day or certain times of the year, and which products produce the most profit.
Analytics usually require third-party software or hardware, (such as foot traffic counters) but with a good POS system, you’ll have access to this information for the cost of the system itself. It’s just one of many powerful extras included in many POS system packages and a serious asset to improving your business.
- Inventory Management Equals Efficiency
Inventory management is pretty much a standard feature of modern POS systems. The ability to efficiently manage your inventory without the need for time-consuming manual counts is an incredible asset to any business, saving time and labor hours, and therefore money.
Leveraging those inventory tools is the first step to increasing your business’s efficiency. A well accounted for inventory not only alleviates the stress of recounts and tracking lost products, but it also helps keep customers happy, and happy customers are loyal customers.
When a customer comes into your store looking for a specific item, you want to be sure that the stock numbers they saw online or in-app are accurate. There’s nothing more frustrating for a customer than seeing an item is in stock, only to be told it’s not once they are in the store.
Inventory management tools track inventory and make returns and exchanges simple. Inventory is returned to the count provided the item is undamaged, and if there are any manual edits required, they can be done right within the software with ease.
You can also add new items to your stock and delete old ones within the software. No more tracking on endless pads of notebook paper or inventory forms, everything is stored within the software, and with many POS systems, backed up in the cloud.
- Customer Profiles Provide Valuable Insight
How do you better serve and encourage customers to shop at your store? You get to know them better! Knowing what your customers want from their visit, as well as your products, can help you tailor your business to meet those needs, and thus maximize sales and create life-long loyalty among your customers.
A POS system will allow you to create customer profiles, which you can then create personalized marketing campaigns from based on the information provided. You’ll have contact information and sales records, which are two powerful tools for tailoring your marketing efforts to specific customers.
How well do you know your customers? Do you know their names or the products they care about? If you answered no to these questions, you may want to look into leveraging that POS system to create accurate customer profiles and get to know them better. The more you know about your customers, the better you can serve them.
- Reducing Paperwork
Did you know that paper waste accounts for almost 50% of all business waste? That’s right, half of the business waste is paper, which costs money. Think about that for a moment…how much money could your business save by drastically reducing your paper waste?
Reducing paper waste not only saves you money but can also generate respect among your peers and customers. With our constantly increased awareness of the business impact on the environment, reducing waste is no longer simply a flashy gesture, but a necessity.
A web-based POS system can help reduce paperwork in a variety of ways. Inventory is managed within the system itself, eliminating the need for costly forms and sheets of paper. Your analytics and sales reports are generated in the software, and while they can be printed, since they’re saved in the cloud, they can be accessed anytime from anywhere.
- Integration With Accounting Software
One of the greatest advantages of leveraging POS systems to work or your business is the ability of this unique software to integrate with your accounting software. Some POS systems even have accounting tools built in.
The accounting process can be a hassle, especially when you have to manually enter the numbers into your accounting software. With a POS system, you can easily integrate Quickbooks or other financial software into the system for easy balancing and sales/cost tracking.
Conclusion
Don’t make the mistake of believing your POS software is only a glorified cash register. The tools included with POS software can work to create a thriving business, complete with custom receipts and analytics tools to better tailor your business to the customers’ needs. A business that puts its customers first will always win in the end.
