You may find yourself considering a change from that cash register that sits in your shop, maybe this was brought on after hearing or reading about ‘cloud based Point of Sale’. But what does it all mean..
Firstly, have you ever asked yourself any of the following questions:
- How can I get more out of customers that come in to my shop?
- How can I better train my store staff to meet their goals?
- How can I link the inventory in my physical store to my online shop?
If so, you need to upgrade to a highly intuitive point of sale system and here’s 8 reasons why you should do that immediately..
1. Inventory Management
You can link your POS system with inventory management software, which means whether you make a sale in store or via an online channel it automatically subtracts the stock from your system via the item’s SKU number. This prevents you from overselling and rids you of them unwanted angry customers.
You can also designate a re-order value against an item and set an alert, to ensure stock is maintained. Further more this integrates with your suppliers, so you can send off a purchase order for more of your best selling stock within seconds.
2. Lower Cost
A traditional POS system can incur several upfront and on-going maintenance charges, such as a license fee, upgrade costs plus fees for support and initial training. The big benefit of a cloud based POS is that there is no upfront fee and payments are made monthly, which makes things a lot easier on your wallet.
Additionally you are able to take out a 14 day free trial with no obligations and if you do decide to sign up you won’t have to pay a cancellation fee if you change your mind (you won’t), plus you can upgrade your package at any point with minimal fuss.
3. Easy Integration with Hardware
You may be thinking at this point, how is this system going to work with the hardware I already have in my shop? Easy, a point of sale system will connect with most USB barcode scanners. If you don’t already have one, these start as low as £15.
Also when you want to link your cash drawer to your receipt printer you simply just connect it with an RJ11 cable. If you have any questions in regards to integration with your hardware there is always a help centre at hand.
4. Unique to your Business
Despite you using a 3rd party POS system, you can make it completely unique to suit your needs. If you sold electronic items for example you could seperate your items to make it easier for your staff to access (e.g Phones, Tablets, Laptops).
It would also be a good idea to make those best sellers more accessible to speed up the process for your customers. When it comes to printing your receipts, you can also edit these to display your company branding, with a basic template editor.
5. Accurate Reporting
As a result of the instantaneous nature of inventory management, you can get access in-depth live reporting at any time. Not only will this allow you to keep tabs on what items are performing best, but you can also discard those slow selling items. You can also analyse sales figures by day, week or month.
The system will also work out your gross profit, so you can monitor your purchase costs from suppliers and make appropriate actions if needed. You can also break down the gross profit further in to channel to identify whether ebay, amazon or perhaps your store is making the most money. Other important statistics include average orders per day, average process time and average order value.
6. Free Upgrades
With Veeqo’s POS we are always looking for new ways to make things easier for our customers. So if any upgrades come in to fruition, these will automatically be added to your account. Currently in the pipeline is ‘Paypal Here’ integration, which would allow you to take your tablet and a card reader with you anywhere to make a sale. Particularly handy for conferences or trade show events.
We are also working on an offline mode feature, so you can still make sales when there is no internet connection. There is also work being done to link it to your personal CRM system, this will enable you to store customer details. From this you will be able to offer customers similar products to increase sales, it will also be beneficial to your staff and make their job of upselling easier.
7. Ease of use
A lot of people are scared of change and the implications that come with it, you may think it would just be easier to carry on as you were. The massive upside of POS is that it is incredibly easy to use. Large product images and buttons make it incredibly intuitive, which would reduce the amount of staff training needed.
You can also have multiple tills, so if you have several staff, they can have a tablet each. This gives them the freedom to walk about your shop and approach customers directly and carry out the sales process there. Bringing the counter to the customer can only make the experience more pleasurable for them and provide a spike in sales.
8. Support
All you need is an internet connection and you will be able to access constant support at your fingertips through instant chat. Alternatively, there is a helpline available if you want to speak to one of the members of our friendly support team.
