The retail business environment has drastically changed. Today, small enterprises don’t have to make major investments in hardware systems. Instead, they are wondering how to build a point of sale software. Point-of-Sale systems have become more popular than conventional cash registers because they optimize sales by collecting the relevant data about your customers and goods in stock in real-time. Entrepreneurs should consider PoS app development, for cloud-based consumer-friendly PoS apps provide them with access to systems calculating the bottom lines.
Although it might not be obvious but a PoS terminal is not synonymous with a PoS system. A terminal is an electronic equipment for sales transactions and credit card payment processing. This computerized network is operated by the main computer that is linked to a certain number of checkout terminals.
Point-of-Sale systems are at the core of any retail business. As a combination of hardware and software for retail and hospitality businesses, PoS helps sellers simplify such main daily business operations as managing checkout operations, making and taking transactions, price control, inventory and staff management, marketing initiatives, labor and sales reporting, etc. Besides, customers see an interface while executing a payment. Here is why developing a mobile app for retail business is a good idea.
1. Elimination of human errors
One should not neglect a human factor in such monotonous work. Calculating orders and stock manually may sometimes lead to human errors. Of course, your business will not go bankrupt due to a single error, but even a slight mistake can cost you thousands in a year. A Point-of-Sale system will pay off within months and will help you avoid losing your bottom line figures.
2. Inventory management
In the past, inventory management used to be time-consuming and expensive. It required a great deal of paperwork, counting, and balancing. It raises three main questions in inventory management: how much you have, how much you’ve moved and how much you need. Products are different in size, shape, color, flavor, volume, etc. Therefore, it is important to understand how much of each item you have in stock.
PoS systems will considerably optimize the whole process. You can also categorize products by name, color, brand, supplier, vendor code with their help. All you need is to scan a vendor code, enter a price and PoS will do the rest of work for you. This small piece of equipment that keeps count of your stock, identifies your best-selling items and alerts you what and when you need to order.
3. Flexibility and price control
A Point-of-Sale system automatically updates product information: name, barcode, price, and discount. If you decide to run a spontaneous discount for your customers, this feature will come in handy. You can track the redemption of products at a discount right from your mobile device.
A proper Point-of-Sale system will allow you to change a price in one store, and it will update across the other stores in different locations. Thus your prices will always be consistent, and your customers won’t feel cheated.
4. Convenience for customers
Keeping existing customers is much easier and cheaper than attracting new ones. SMS and email receipts will help you improve Customer-Merchant interaction. Such a feedback system will make it easier for customers to communicate that a product is unavailable, for example, or that your staff did something wrong. This is the best way to measure your business performance.
5. Efficiency and mobility
Forget about long lines of customers waiting impatiently to check out while a cashier is entering the product information manually. Thus you can increase your productivity and serve many more customers. A Point-of-Sale system optimized for barcode scanning can improve the checkout process significantly. It will allow recording and storing more data at the checkout which be used to stimulate your clients’ loyalty and increase sales.
With cloud-based Point-of-Sale, sales will be recorded from your mobile device from any place in the store. Your clients will appreciate having a direct conversation and it will be easier for a cashier to serve several customers at once.
6. User-friendly interface
With PoS, it will get easier for your staff to use mobile devices and computers for work. The pos software has a convenient and easy graphical interface. You don’t need to spend weeks to train your employees and to get them familiar with electronic devices. They will be ready to get down to work after a few hours of training.
7. 24-hour support
Running a business is not that easy, it takes a lot of time and energy. That is why you will be more than satisfied with convenient cloud-based PoS that ensures around-the-clock support. Information about the inventory, order, sales, and customer analytics is available 24/7 and can be sent directly to your mobile device. If you have any questions, you can ask them anytime and the client support service will answer them promptly.
8. Expansion of chain stores
If you add multiple shop locations without a tight integration of PoS solutions with other systems, the inventory visibility can become obscure. The growth of a retail chain usually causes an increase in the number of product vendor codes and new customers, which means more data for merchants to process. Consequently, entrepreneurs need to review sales and inventory in all their stores in a centralized way. Cloud-based retail software solutions integrated with inventory and well-organized customer relationship management data can help you with that.
A PoS system suits well for merchandising between shops and contributes to the reporting system improvement. Advanced custom retail software and inventory management solutions for retail business also facilitate its running, both local and international, adopting a unique language and a tax system which are required by a country. You can easily get immediate access to key performance indicators with a PoS terminal and an integrated PoS software.
9. Accurate accounting
Point of Sale software will provide you with a detailed inventory —a receipt tracking an accurate accounting. You can use this for analyzing and improving your sales. Plus, you can review accounting information from all your stores using one administrative interface.
10. Taxes
Another advantage of PoS systems is that they do most of the work for you – calculating your due sales taxes depending on the amount of realized sales. They also support lots of tax rates which is very convenient when you are running your business in more than one state or country.
How to Make a PoS Software
PoS system development may result in a successful and profitable business. Retail software development companies know what product to make to optimize your store. As a rule, they know full well what technologies and services concerning software development, custom PoS software development, PoS application development, and their support to offer. To cut these expenses, those who consider Point of Sale software development should keep in mind the following hints:
1. While developing PoS, a software developer is to ensure conformity to quality standards of software development. PoS of great quality raises fewer complaints or questions from users.
2. A detailed custom help system is a great way to predict and answer most of the clients’ questions.
3. Testing is extremely important for retail mobile app development and PoS terminal software development. Efficient QA engineers can greatly improve their products even before launching them.
4. A software development company is to provide long-term support to its solutions.
5. Software products should be regularly updated to keep clients’ interest and make some changes.
PoS software and mobile app development can be a smart option for you to modernize your store. If your retail business needs software, contact us! We know how to create Point of Sale software and we have a lot of solutions to offer you.
© 2018, Vilmate LLC
