Whether you’re a store rep, server, bookkeeper, or buyer – not having an up-to-date point of sale (POS) system means you have to grapple with issues you’d just as soon avoid. These may include inventory shortages, customers irked by transaction delays, lost receipts, and excessive paper documentation (complete with coffee stains). Unfortunately, a lot of retail and restaurant managers are resistant to change because of the perceived expense and difficulty of switching to a modern POS system.
Here are a few selling points for upgrading to a touchscreen, cloud-based POS system. If you’re an employee, you know they’ll make your life easier. Now to convince the boss.
Make inventory management one of your biggest strengths.
NCR Counterpoint has the ability to generate over 160 reports, provide real-time stocking levels, create barcodes, and automate purchasing. For businesses with multiple locations, it allows managers to easily transfer inventory between branches. All that amounts to reduced stockouts, spoilage, and other snafus.
Say you miss out on $400 a month in revenues due to stockouts. If improved inventory management can reduce stockouts by 80%, you’re looking at $320/month in additional revenues. That’s $3,840 a year in additional sales—using conservative assumptions—from just one dimension of inventory management! Inventory reports that NCR Counterpoint runs can also help reduce surplus inventory, which will further improve cash flows. As a manager or business owner, you can select which inventory reports are most relevant to your business, which ones you wish to view personally, and which ones to assign to other managers.
Quality point-of-sale systems like Counterpoint and, NCR Silver Pro (for restaurants) can generate reports to help guide all sorts of managerial decisions including inventory replenishment, pricing, and merchandising.
Prevent theft.
It’s tempting to gloss over the topic of employee theft, but it’s all too common. This is especially true when taking into account non-malicious theft like “discretionary” discounts and freebies to friends and family. How much does it add up to in your business? You can’t manage what you don’t measure, but with a modern point-of-sale system, the task is much easier.
Say stolen inventory amounts to 3% of the Cost of Goods Sold (COGS). If COGS is $50K a month, that means theft amounts to $1,500 a month or $18,000 annually!
With POS systems, Counterpoint or NCR Silver Pro, a business can help flag things like large discounts, excessive “no sale” transactions, voided tickets, and other concerning things. Even at more conservative figures than those discussed above, it will pay for itself many times over.
Optimize staffing.
Avoid over- or understaffing with point-of-sale analytics that identifies peak hours. If you can eliminate a single eight-hour shift (or two four-hour shifts) at $12/hour, that’s a savings of $96 a week – nearly $5000 a year! Furthermore, ensuring that you have adequate staff during peak hours keeps lines moving, reduces cart abandonment, and helps retain customers.
Similarly, employees can clock in and out with Counterpoint, which improves time tracking for payroll. Even honest employees are unlikely to round their hours down, yet many businesses still use manual timecards and rounding. Those minutes at the beginning and end of each shift add up.
Marketing and customer engagement.
According to Hubspot as well as Search Engine Journal, email marketing has an average ROI of 4300% – but only if it’s done right. A good POS system allows customers an easy opt-in and keeps lists up-to-date. You’ll never import another email spreadsheet! A POS system with email marketing integrated can also help segment customers by purchasing history and preferences to deliver relevant, individualized offers. Organized, accessible customer data is integral to effective marketing, and systems like Counterpoint make it easy.
Electronic receipts delivered by email also allow businesses to send customer feedback surveys and additional offers with ease. Further, it’s just one additional POS feature that eliminates unnecessary equipment and supplies.
Discount and loyalty programs.
Point of sale analytics can inform your company’s discount strategy and manage loyalty programs so they not only make people feel good but make financial sense. Are there low-margin items you should avoid discounting? Are loyalty programs difficult to manage because you’re tracking them on paper or using spreadsheets? Eliminate guesswork, save time, and ensure that loyalty programs actually drive customer retention by upgrading.
If you’re a retailer, data provided by point-of-sale systems can also identify customers who abuse return policies. You aren’t an equipment rental company, so don’t get taken advantage of.
Stay relevant.
Convenience is everything in an era where it’s “sooo cool” to be busy. Make it more convenient for customers to order from you than an online competitor. Or just add ecommerce to your operations. It’s not as much work as you may think, and we’re here to make it as streamlined as possible! You can place an order from a tablet for a product you may not ordinarily stock, based on a customer’s preferences, and spare her both time and shipping costs.
But as with the above examples, that can only happen if you have a smart POS system.
Modern, cloud-based point-of-sale systems offer a few other perks. These include the user-friendly touchscreen interface, increasing counter space (by eliminating clunky old monitors), reduced human error, shorter lines, and other intangibles that make customers and employees just a little happier day to day.
The bottom line is that point-of-sale software systems improve margins and customer retention, identify low-hanging fruits, and eliminate guesswork with managerial decisions. Select one suited to your business—it will pay off in spades.
