POS Software can save a Business

Point of Sale software can save a retail business from collapse. Seriously.

There are many success stories where Point of Sale software has turned retail businesses around, saved others tens of thousands of dollars or others where year on year growth has outstripped all previous years.

The software itself does not do this of course.

The key are the facilities in the software and how they are used.

Good POS software, used properly, can help the retailer:

Understand business performance. From this you can make better business decisions and make them faster and with greater certainty. By understanding business performance I mean comparing trading periods, analysing not only sales but also unit sales, items per shopping basket, total sales value.

See what stock is not performing. Using this data you can quit poorly performing stock before the costs are too high. Rank sales by revenue and unit sales. Good POS software will let you cut this data a number of ways to provide flexible views.

Measure employee performance. Using this you can work with employees to improve performance or help them exit from the business. While employees may not like this, it is vital to the health of the business.

Compare supplier performance. You can use this data to exit suppliers who are not helping the business. It is better to use your supplier performance data than what suppliers themselves tell you.

Identify your best customers. With this knowledge appropriately reward them to further drive their business. Using loyalty facilities you can reward customers and drive their spending frequency with you.

Measure return on floor space. Use this to adjust floor space allocation to reflect the financial needs of the business. Floor space is expensive. It is essential for a healthy of occupancy cost that you find the stock which works best for you in each location. POS software must enable you to report on return on stock that occupy floor space.

Drive repeat business. Getting existing customers back is essential to the health of any retail business. Make sure that your POS software has tools for luring existing customer back. Whether it be coupons on receipts, email marketing, text message marketing, direct mail or other mechanisms, good POS Software will provide tools you can use to make existing customers more efficient.

Cutting theft. Employee and customer theft can kill any retail business. Use the theft control and tracking tools in your software to manage the theft risk. Too often theft management tools are ignored by retailers until it is too late.

Manage cash. Cash is king in retail and good Point of sale software provides excellent tools for easily managing cash. Embrace these tools and take cash seriously.

Point of Sale Software can save a business from collapse, the cost of employee theft and poor business decisions. The key is to find the software which is right for you and fully embrace all it offers