8 Top Reasons Why Your Business Needs A POS (Point Of Sale) System
Why Your Business Needs A POS?
A powerful business management solution such as a POS system is important for any business owner – retail, or service. And you’ve probably heard of the term POS(point-of-sale) somewhere before. So what are the benefits of a POS system? And does your small or medium business even need one? Gotcha!!
Don’t worry, I’m here to answer all these questions for you with our handy list of reasons why your business absolutely needs a point-of-sale system!
For That, You Have to Know First What is POS System?
Ok! lemme say,
A point of sale, or point of purchase, is where you ring up customers. When customers check out online, walk up to your checkout counter, or pick out an item from your stand or booth, they’re at the point of sale.
Your point-of-sale system is the hardware and software that enable your business to make those sales.
The latest point of sale software goes beyond credit card processing to help retailers and restaurants incorporate mobile POS features and contactless payment options, and eCommerce integration capabilities.
A modern POS system does not only process sales transactions, it can also:
- provide real-time data and reports
- automate manual tasks
- help you manage your inventory, employees, customers
- and more!
This is all so you, the business owner, can make smart, data-driven business decisions to help increase your sales.
You definitely need a good POS system – whether you run a retail store, a cafe, a restaurant, a food truck, or a geans shop.
And here’s why:
1. Run your business from anywhere
Are you on-the-go a lot and don’t always have the time to go to your store to check on things?
Well, when you use a cloud-based POS system, you can run your business whenever and wherever you want.
A cloud-based POS system stores its data stored on the Internet, which means that it can be accessed anytime, anywhere.
This is great for busy small business owners.
You don’t have to go to your store or call your busy employees to find out how much stock you have left on a certain item.
All you need to do is access your device to view the data yourself.
2. Better employee management
Managing employees is hard. Especially if you’re running a small business and already have a lot of other things that need your attention.
Well, great news!
A smart POS system will help you with that through its employee management feature. You can:
- manage employee information
- track the number of hours each employee works
- track how much sales each employee generates
- and more!
Cool huh?
There’s more!
The employee management feature of your POS system will have a shift feature that requires employees to clock in and clock-out using a PIN. This allows you to track all their hours worked properly so salary can be calculated fairly and accurately.
This feature also lets you see what and how much your employee sells during their shift. So you’ll know who’s working and who’s slacking.
For fraud prevention and if you want to control access to any sensitive information such as sales reports and so on.
Additionally, a POS can manage features to identify and reward top-performing employees to motivate your entire team to do better.
You can even find out your busiest times so you can efficiently manage the schedules of your staff.
3. Get real-time data and reports
A POS system opens up your business to the world of customer data and all the benefits that brings(opens in new tab). Over time data can be collected and utilized in many ways, to reap rewards. After all, you cannot run a business based on insight and intuition alone. Through accurate data collection you can create successful strategies and make informed business decisions.
When you have sufficient data, for example, you can order in exactly the amount of actionable stock that a certain store needs (and has proved popular with customers). You will be then able to introduce price reductions and special offers on goods according to that data.
A POS system will also offer analytics(opens in new tab) features that provide specific information, such as low stock count; best selling items; worse selling items; off-peak hours; and peak hours.
Imagine this:
- Without data: You order 1230pc of men’s T-Shirt because you feel you need more this week. You end up overbuying and wasting your money.
- With data: Your report tells you that you need to order exactly 490pc of men’s T-Shirt for this week. You buy exactly what you need without wasting money.
4. A Good POS Can Save Your Time & Money
Time and money management are important for any small-medium business owner, as you usually don’t have much to spare.
But here’s the good news…
An all-in-one POS system will help you save both time and money – two very important things in any small business owner’s life. For one, it’s easy to use, so you don’t have to waste hours training your staff.
An easy-to-use POS system also helps speed up your checkout process during peak hours, which helps drive more sales for your business.
So, the easier you make it for your staff, the more time they have to spend on customer service and sales.
You also save money because you’re able to track your finances better via its real-time reporting feature.
Your POS system will also help you prevent waste and loss via its inventory management system. Human errors are also reduced because it automates a lot of your tedious manual tasks and data collection.
5. Improved inventory management
One of the best POS benefits for all business types is inventory management tools. To run business the right way it means having accurate store management systems in place. Inventory management is a POS system business highlight. This feature can track inventory not just in the back office but also through multi store branches and even an online store.
This creates quick service when trying to locate various products and highlights stock levels for more informed inventory purchasing.
6. Increase Customers Loyality
We found that loyal customers tend to spend 3 times more than new customers. So, how do you determine a loyal customer from a new customer?
With your POS system’s CRM (Customer Relationship Management) feature, you can!
You’re able to see who your loyal – and essentially – most valuable customers are.
Using the CRM feature, you can:
- hold special promotions and sales
- notify your loyal customers first via email or SMS blasts, as they have a higher probability of spending at your store
You can also use this data to motivate and reward your loyal customers with things like loyalty or referral programs to keep them coming back.
So always remember that loyal customers = higher sales potential and that using a CRM feature will help you get closer to more sales.
7. Faster Payment
Technology is evolving day by day, so thus the payment methodologies. Carrying cash around has now become old fashioned and outdated. Instead, everyone prefers to go cashless and use various forms of payment methodologies such as credit or debit cards, e-wallets, UPI, etc.
Using advanced POS software, you can increase your business credibility by accepting various payment methods, whatever your customers prefer.
Easy payment acceptance will lure your customers to visit the store again and again, which will directly increase the higher sales potential.
8. Improve The Customers Experience
Using a POS system can greatly improve the customer experience. This is achieved using features such as customer ordering and inventory tracking, which enables product look-up and order to a store from other franchise locations (for example).
Additionally, a cloud-based POS system frees up your employees to provide customer service and sell items directly from the shop floor on a mobile device – such as an iPhone or iPad – which then feeds back to all other areas of your system.
The best POS systems(opens in a new tab) will record thousands of existing customer inquiries, meaning that other customers who have the same problems or queries can be served more efficiently faster, when compared to stores that would have to look up answers without that context each and every time.
As you have explored the advantages of POS system now the absolute question is,
Does your small or medium-scale business even need one?
The appropriate response is clearly – Yes!
So How Do I Choose A Pos System?
The best way to choose a POS system is to research the different options and then decide which works best for the business needs. Make sure the POS system fits the budget and business needs before confirming the purchase. With so many options available, it’s better to know how each operates.
Above, there is a very nice way to explain why POS is needed and what benefits it will bring to your store. So the decision here will depend entirely on you. And you must first judge the size of the business in your store.
So? Did you understand the above? Do you need POS or not?