POINT OF SALE SYSTEM DEFINITION
Getting started by picking a point of sale system: Definition and basics
Legacy point of sale (POS) registers offer little beyond being able to ring up customers and send them on their way. But the intuitive nature of the modern POS register can offer so much more to you and your customers, forever changing the way you operate and how they engage with you.
But even the addition of the most exciting and capable POS functions will fail to meet expectations unless you have a plan in place. A total shift from old to new means that you need a comprehensive point of sale system definition. Let’s start with a basic comparison:
Cash Register
Basic equipment designed to ring up customers using cash or card. Advanced models can also factor in taxes.
POS System
Does everything a register does and more, including loyalty programs, data analytics, pre-set discounts, and more.
Cash Register
Basic equipment designed to ring up customers using cash or card. Advanced models can also factor in taxes.
POS System
Does everything a register does and more, including loyalty programs, data analytics, pre-set discounts, and more.
Connect your point of sale register to the cloud
Tracking sales numbers is important for properly balancing finances and determining the financial health of your business. Innovations in POS technology now offer you the chance to connect a POS terminal directly to the cloud. This improvement gives you the ability to instantly send data from sales transactions into the cloud for safekeeping and greatly improved accessibility.
The cloud-based nature of these registers gives you and your staff the ability to use a POS register for more than checkouts including:
Report management
Create or execute reports to perform predictive sales analytics or monitor inventory.
Staff management
Staff management tools including punch-ins, punch-outs, or managing payroll.
Data management
Access to scheduling and customer purchasing histories.
Unlike legacy POS registers where sales data must be manually exported and parsed into various financial pieces, cloud-based POS registers do this for you behind the scenes. It is this capability that enables a modern POS register system to perform all of these tasks and more while opening your business up to offering additional options and sales channels to your customer base.
Examine and expand the offered payment options
Adding a new type of POS register, and all of its accompanying bells and whistles, will offer exciting new options for your business. One of these new options is the ability to change the way customers pay for your products and services. Some of the technologies introduced by a POS register system for accepting payments are:
Including digital receipts and billing.
Via cloud-based security services and storage.
Lower costs per transaction.
Including NFC or digital wallets.
To better support virtual storefronts or contactless platforms.
Any one of these newly available technologies can have a drastic impact on your business. Whether it is the lowering of the associated cost of each payment, the ability to accept online payments or the quickened pace of checkout — the customer is sure to notice. And, many of these features serve to take manual tasks off of the plates of staff, freeing them to be more focused on customer service.
Important features to look out for
“Point of sale” doesn’t mean what it used to.
Retailers must present their customers with a positive and enjoyable exchange via their POS system’s interface. Your business’s POS system must keep pace with rising customer expectations about the speed, accuracy, security, and convenience of shopping for and buying their favorite products. Here’s a closer look at the customer-pleasing features that modern cloud-based POS systems provide.
Customers want mobility, integration, and rewards in a point of sale
Nothing will disappoint today’s retail customers faster than standing in line at a checkout counter. Finances Online states it plainly, “If your business doesn’t support mobile payments, it’s losing customers.”
2.5 trillion
The projected transaction value of mobile POS payments worldwide, according to Statista.
17%
The compound annual growth rate forecasted for the market segment through 2025, when it will be worth about $4.65 trillion
1.9 billion
The approximate number of people worldwide who use will mobile POS payments by 2025.
Despite the projected growth in mobile payments, more than 46% of retailers still don’t allow their customers to make mobile payments, according to Finances Online. These are the customer-focused mobility features your POS system needs:
| Mobile app |  |
Process refunds, returns, and exchanges quickly and securely from any location using the store’s custom mobile app. |
| Digital receipts |  |
Deliver customer receipts via email or text to simplify recordkeeping. |
| Ease of browsing |  |
Provide a product catalog or menu with up to 100 items that customers can browse at their leisure. |
| Preset discounts |  |
Offer automatic discounts when customers reach preset thresholds or qualify for special promotions. |
| Splitting bills |  |
Accept multiple payment sources for a single transaction via split tender. |
| Mobile app | |
Process refunds, returns, and exchanges quickly and securely from any location using the store’s custom mobile app. |
| Digital receipts | |
Deliver customer receipts via email or text to simplify recordkeeping. |
| Ease of browsing | |
Provide a product catalog or menu with up to 100 items that customers can browse at their leisure. |
| Preset discounts | |
Offer automatic discounts when customers reach preset thresholds or qualify for special promotions. |
| Splitting bills | |
Accept multiple payment sources for a single transaction via split tender. |
A POS system’s ability to track a store’s sales in real-time requires that it integrates online sales and in-person transactions, whether they’re completed using customer-facing kiosks, mobile devices, or standard POS terminals. For customers, having a single view of their online and in-store buying activity helps them track their purchases and receive automatic notifications of each order’s status.
Integrated loyalty programs are a POS feature that customers are flocking to in increasing numbers. The POS system prompts employees to enroll clients in the business’s loyalty program as part of the checkout process, making it easy to add their contact information and other personal data. Subsequent purchases by the customer will show the loyalty points they have accumulated and give them the option of redeeming them.
Speed up and simplify sales transactions
The ideal portable POS tablet would be the equivalent of a mobile cash register that also links to your store’s inventory, accounting system, product catalog, customer database and other information. A POS tablet can be used to process a range of cashless transactions on the spot, including EMV credit cards, digital wallets, such as Apple Pay and Google Pay and other contactless payment options.
To accommodate customers who prefer to use cash to pay for their purchases, a POS tablet can connect wirelessly to a physical cash register drawer. The devices automatically apply discounts, process refunds and offer customers promotional bundles that complement the products they’re purchasing. They also link wirelessly to barcode scanners, receipt printers, digital sales and card readers.
Customers respond positively to retailers who make them feel appreciated. Your POS system helps your store build a loyal customer base by making it easy for clients to communicate with you and by maintaining complete customer records that let you respond quickly and informatively. Most importantly, the POS system empowers customers by letting them find answers to their questions and putting more functionality into their hands.
How today’s point of sale systems boost the quality of customer service
Retailers know that the store hours posted on their front doors are a misnomer. The tremendous rise in online shopping has made retail a 24/7/365 operation. Customers expect the same level of service when shopping online as they receive when visiting stores in person.
| Custom appearance |  |
Retailers need to create a singular shopping experience by duplicating the ambiance and other characteristics of their brick-and-mortar store in their custom mobile app and branded website. |
| App adaptability | |
They have to adopt an omnichannel marketing strategy that delivers the same quality experience whether customers are using a phone or computer to shop, or they’re shopping in person. |
| Customer response |  |
As more customers use their phones to find information about products while they shop in stores, retailers need to be ready to add mobile call-to-action (CTA) features to respond instantly to customer queries. |
| Repeat purchase data |  |
To maximize their profitability, retailers should focus on customers’ second, third, and subsequent purchases as well as their first one. Research reported by Salesforce found that only 31% of consumers’ initial purchases of a product occur online, but 47% of subsequent purchases of that product are made online. |
Custom appearance
Retailers need to create a singular shopping experience by duplicating the ambiance and other characteristics of their brick-and-mortar store in their custom mobile app and branded website.
App adaptability
They have to adopt an omnichannel marketing strategy that delivers the same quality experience whether customers are using a phone or computer to shop, or they’re shopping in person.
Customer response
As more customers use their phones to find information about products while they shop in stores, retailers need to be ready to add mobile call-to-action (CTA) features to respond instantly to customer queries.
Repeat purchase data
To maximize their profitability, retailers should focus on customers’ second, third, and subsequent purchases as well as their first one. Research reported by Salesforce found that only 31% of consumers’ initial purchases of a product occur online, but 47% of subsequent purchases of that product are made online.
Retailers are better able to compete with online outlets by using a POS system that integrates their in-store and e-commerce operations to provide a seamless shopping experience for customers. The integration also streamlines management by connecting the business’s accounting, inventory, employee management, and other processes. Keeping tabs on market trends and customer preferences is facilitated by the detailed sales reports POS systems generate, giving retailers more ways to shape the customer experience.
8 steps to increase sales with point of sale systems
Now that you have a point of sale system definition, you are probably wondering what it can do for you. Your strategy for translating the features of cloud-based POS technology into higher sales encompasses sales performance tracking and analysis, inventory control, omnichannel marketing, and customer relationship management. Follow these eight steps to gain all the sales advantages possible from your store’s POS system.
There’s more to managing sales than comparing daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly sales figures. The best way to determine the effectiveness of your sales efforts is by tracking the key performance indicators (KPI) that are most relevant to your operation.
- The conversion rate lets you know the percentage of store visitors who make a purchase.
- Customer lifetime value tells you the total value each customer delivers from their first purchase to their last.
- Sales per employee determines the efficiency of your sales staff.
- Sales per category indicates which product categories are generating the most and least sales.
The average transaction value shows how effective your marketing efforts are and whether you need to adjust your prices.
Take advantage of your POS system’s built-in sales analytics to set goals for future sales. The goals can be expressed in dollars or product units for a specific period, which is typically month to month, quarter to quarter, or year to year.
Keep your sales staff apprised of the sales goals and the store’s progress toward achieving them. You may choose to offer incentives for reaching or exceeding the business’s sales goals for each quarter.
Nothing sends sales figures plummeting faster than running out of stock on your most popular merchandise. Retail point of sale technology provides real-time inventory updates by monitoring online and in-person sales as they occur. The systems give retailers a clear and complete dashboard view of inventory levels, as well as alerts when counts fall to preset levels and automatic reordering of your best-selling items.
Customers increasingly expect the same shopping experience online that they enjoy when they’re shopping in person. Retailers likewise need to be able to shift from online mode to in-store operations fluidly and transparently. POS systems help stores achieve both goals by seamlessly integrating sales tracking, marketing, and other management tasks.
- Make a personal connection with your online customers by offering them discounts and promotions based on their past purchases.
- Create a custom online presence that matches your store’s ambiance to deliver a unified shopping experience for customers.
- Include a “call to action” feature in your store’s mobile app so shoppers who access the app while shopping in the store can complete their purchases with a single click.
One reason customers are increasingly choosing to shop online is the control the experience gives them. Stores that embrace the trend by providing clients with even more shopping options can extend the customer-facing features to their in-person operations.
By tapping the sales data collected by their POS systems, retailers can identify the products and services their customers prefer. Combined with customer histories, this information can be used to offer shoppers promotions tailored to their preferences, which further engages customers and makes them more likely to return.
The growing popularity of mobile apps has raised customer expectations about the level of service they expect from their favorite retailers. After all, standing in a checkout line is so 2010. The best way to provide customers with the speed, efficiency, flexibility, and accuracy they’ve come to expect when making purchases is by equipping your sales staff with mobile devices running POS software.
- Customers can complete their transactions using the payment option of their choice and be on their way.
- Stores save by reducing their POS footprint, as well as by delivering receipts via text or email. This also allows retailers to stay in closer contact with their customers to alert them to sales and other promotions they may be interested in.
Customers increasingly expect the same shopping experience online that they enjoy when they’re shopping in person. Retailers likewise need to be able to shift from online mode to in-store operations fluidly and transparently. POS systems help stores achieve both goals by seamlessly integrating sales tracking, marketing, and other management tasks.
- Make a personal connection with your online customers by offering them discounts and promotions based on their past purchases.
- Create a custom online presence that matches your store’s ambiance to deliver a unified shopping experience for customers.
- Include a “call to action” feature in your store’s mobile app so shoppers who access the app while shopping in the store can complete their purchases with a single click.
The best way to increase the “average transaction value” sales metric is by taking every opportunity to present customers with product bundles and other upsell offers based on their purchases. Modern POS systems provide retailers with new insights into customer demographics, seasonal sales trends, and the effectiveness of promotions, bundles, and other special offers.
Retail employees can access a customer’s purchase history and other information to offer a one-of-a-kind combination to enhance their purchase such as the perfect blouse to complement their new skirt or a set of attachments that will make their electric drill more useful. Retail point of sale technology makes crafting such personalized promotions nearly automatic.
What a point of sale systems definition can do for you
Retailers can’t afford to miss taking advantage of the opportunities to increase the sales that modern POS systems deliver. With a more accurate point of sale systems definition, you’re more prepared to set realistic and ideal sales goals and devise strategies for achieving those goals. You’re also able to engage employees, monitor inventory more accurately, and anticipate customer trends.
When the time comes to upgrade your store’s POS system, be sure to work with a vendor with the experience and knowledge to craft a solution that’s tailored to your business’s unique needs and characteristics. The experts at talech are ready to show you the many ways the right POS system can boost your bottom line. Sign up for a free demo to see a modern cloud-based POS system in action.
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