In old school retailing, point of sale was simply what you used to ring prices through the till and take the money from the customer stood in front of you. Of course, such a simple process is what forms the basis of modern point of sale systems, however they go much further than that. How does the added functionality of modern point of sale make running a business a much smoother process?
1. See What You Have Sold
Save yourself a lot of time and money from the old ways of having to go through a paper audit roll and work out by hand what items you have sold. Modern point of sale allows business managers and owners to easily view what they have sold and the price they have sold it at.
This then has a knock on effect onto other areas of the business, such as ordering future stock, as you have a clear picture of what items are popular and fast sellers through your retail store.
2. Understand Losses
While you can see what you have sold on a line-by-line basis with modern point of sale, you can also work out more accurately what you have lost when you stocktake. If it has not gone through your system then it has left your store in the possession of a shoplifter. While you cannot take any immediate action to recover the loss, what you can do is identify trends and common items or areas of your store that are targeted, and take remedial action moving forward.
3. Proactively Bring Customers Into the Store
Because you can see what you are selling at great rates, you can also obviously see what it is you are therefore not selling. Customers love a bargain, and this could be your opportunity to give them one. As well as seeing what items are slow sellers, modern point of sale can also be used to view profit margins on certain items, so you can give reductions to customers while still making a small profit to clear slow sellers out of your business.
4. Understand Staffing Needs
By using the detailed reporting functions that come with most modern point of sale platforms, you can clearly work out how many staff you need at a given time of day based on how much money you are taking. If you have four people in your store at 10am but do not get busy until 1pm, you will save yourself a lot of money on staffing costs in the long term.
5. Monitor Staff Productivity
Naturally you cannot be everywhere at once, and from time to time you may even take the honour of a day off. By setting up your systems accordingly, you can observe which members of staff are selling the most products and adding the most value to your business, allowing you to praise as well as deal with underperformers accordingly.
Author Bio:
The author of this article, Posterita, is POS software that allows chain stores and single stores to manage every aspect of their operations via a web-based platform.
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