Point of Sale (POS)  Software is the brain that powers a customer facing retail or hospitality business. Combined with a POS terminal (which could include tablets, card readers, barcode scanners, monitors and cash drawers) you find yourself in possession of a fully weaponised POS System capable of controlling your sales, your cashflow and your stock. Without it, it would be like having an office job with no PC and no internet.

1) Who needs it?

Are you in retail or hospitality sales? Do you sell goods, products or services face-to-face from a storefront or customer-facing place of business? You need it. No argument.

Key industries that really need POS include: mobile popup vendors, restaurants, food outlets, consumer goods, cosmetic stores, sporting goods, storefronts of almost any kind… Basically if you are a goods and products seller with a physical store or stand which serves customers, you need to get your POS on.

2) What will it do for me I can’t do for myself?

A lot… Better, quicker and with far less complaining too.

Here’s an example. You are the proud owner of a trendy market stall selling t-shirts printed with famous cartoon characters eating fast food. Awesome.
You are getting popular with the inner-city tumeric latte set and suddenly your pencil box full of change and your pen and paper sales record is not cutting it. Time for POS! Or more specifically, to remain mobile and un-tethered from any single location, you need Cloud POS.

As a  savvy market stall owner, armed with a mere tablet, you will now be able to:

  • Manage your inventory: with no-brainer inventory management you can see at a glance which t-shirts are selling and which aren’t, as well as who sold them and of course how many you have left, complete with alerts as to when you should reorder.
  • Monitor your profitability: focus on profitability by showing which t-shirts make you money, which you should ditch and what your total sales tally is looking like so you can budget accordingly. You can easily post your end of day sales figures, save time & reduce potential errors of double handling, and get a clear picture of the overall health of your business.
  • Know your customers better: you can now highlight your customer’s buying habits with transaction history alongside an inbuilt loyalty rewards program. You can also see your busiest and least busy times to know when you need to be all hands on deck and when it’s safe to grab a quick break.
  • Selling on the go: probably the standout function for you, as you do not have a traditional storefront. You can take your stall to markets from town to town with no hassles whatsoever. With mobile POS, your staff no longer have to wait for buyers to come to them – they can approach customers anywhere around the market and help them with their buying decisions. And if the POS software is integrated with good accounting software, your employees can handle credit card payments immediately and email the customer their receipt. You can also track how many sales Lenny the hairy student makes when you take your kombucha break… You suspect not many.

3) The whole system is customisable

Using POS software, especially cloud POS (totally mobile and ideal for use on tablets and phones) means you then get to customise your terminal setup as well as staying mobile.

Our illustrious t-shirt salesman above needs only his iPad, a box of t-shirts and maybe a receipt printer.
What if you sell toys at a storefront in the local mall?

Your setup:

  • Barcode scanners, tuned to your inventory which allows seamless and mistake free stock tracking, making counting a thing of the past.
  • You can add a touchscreen of stock designated ‘buttons’, clearly labelled to refer to products without barcodes. Now you can simply tap the corresponding button to add a toy to the order.
  • You can use POS to track employee toy sales, doubling as a system which can be referenced in case of missing stock.
  • Want to reward customers as well as accept credit cards? Grab a card scanner to make your own gift/reward cards while ensuring you accept all forms of payment.
  • Use a receipt printer in case that toy breaks and have a professional system of sales records when you need to create a refund for your customers.
  • Ensure all sales records are waiting at any moment to be used for tax time or budget tracking.

We could devise dozens of scenarios here, but the simple fact remains: if you are making sales in a customer facing business… you need POS.

Watch this space for Reckon’s new Cloud POS solution!