Last updated on October 31st, 2022 at 10:23 am
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Taking the time to evaluate your point of sale needs will make the difference for your business today and tomorrow.
When you think of selling a product, it’s as easy as taking a product from the shelf, taking money from that customer, and the customer is satisfied with that product. Sure, why not? Let’s take time to talk about what “really” needs to happen, especially in our changing times today. From the moment you decide to sell something, you must choose brick and mortar, e-commerce, what product lines consumers are looking for and so many other challenges. When looking at a point of sale (POS) system, they rarely only scan groceries anymore (and if that is the case, you should start looking at options). Let’s spend some time breaking it down.
Point of sale and the importance of speed and accuracy
This is one of the most critical aspects of your store. The POS experience is the last thing your customers see and feel when they leave your store. Through the years, the point of sale has come a long way, from the early days of hand keying the prices to blazing scan rates and even product identification becoming more popular.
Technology is shaping the shopper and employees today; grocers are taking the next steps and focusing more on technology, improving the customer experience and balancing how to overcome the unprecedented labor shortages.
The world of self-checkout and accuracy
Today self-checkouts are no longer a luxury but a necessity. Even retailers with few traditional lanes are moving to self-checks and kiosk style point of sale systems. Shockingly, the customers that used to shy away from self-service are using them at high rates. Of course, the same concerns remain, from security and data integrity to the customer service experience.
However, today with security technology and POS reports, you can still be confident that what is scanned (or keyed) is accurate, and the reports that point of sales software, such as LOC, will prove that self-checks make the most sense. In addition, a hardware agnostic software provides options for a floor design that will work for any retail style.
The data that you are getting from your point of sale
When tying this all together, you must know the data that you are looking at is accurate. Looking at a point of sale system, evaluating what the system can do for you is where it’s at. One seamless integration where the database is the same and flows natively from POS to back office and back office to host. Identifying the data, you need to run your business is where it begins. Then you must start looking at how and when you can access your data.
A few data points to keep in mind from the point of sale, can I quickly access my busiest hours? Can I see what my cashier statistics are? What about security reports? Do I know what my loyalty customers are buying, and can I use this data to ensure they return to my store? More on this later.
Payment options at your point of sale
If you have watched the news in recent years, you know that even the big box stores get hit with credit card breaches, which cost the industry and consumers more money and instills fear. But, here is the excellent news: if you partner with a software or reseller partner, you can ease your mind on the intricate details of payments. Today, in these ever-changing times, the market is moving toward contactless payments at the lanes, including PayPal and Venmo. LOC is proud to partner with Blackhawk Network to provide the leading-edge technology to keep pace with every customer base safely and securely.
Navigating the online experience
Despite being around for years, online shopping was not heavily present in the grocery space. That is until COVID changed the way people had to shop. Understanding this platform and then how to fill those orders is critical. Whether you look to maintain the e-commerce internally or use one of the many solutions out there, having software that can handle everything under one platform or integrating to a solution that you may already be using makes all the difference.
Making that data work for you
Let us talk about the meat and potatoes now (no, not literally meat and potatoes!), but more so, where does all this data from the front-end point of sale, kiosk or e-commerce go, and what can it do for you? Here is the deal, if you do not stay close to your data, you will lose out. There is little to no time to react, restock and provide your consumer with the experience that sets you apart from the others. Therefore, a software solution that allows all transactions from the back door receiving and purchasing to move effortlessly to the point of sale is vital.
Let’s take a minute to talk about questions that might keep you up at night:
- What should I put on sale?
- Who is funding the sale?
- How will this affect my bottom line?
- How do my stores compare to each other?
- How can my buyers make the right choices?
- How do I work with my wholesaler?
- And most importantly, is my system flexible enough to help me answer these questions?
Reports such as vendor profit reports ensure that your vendors provide you with what your consumers are asking for. Likewise, finding slow or no movers and, more importantly, high volume movers ensures the product is available to consumers in today’s supply chain disruptions. Finally, regarding inventory tracking, recipe and scale management integrations will help your staff stay on top of the product needs, especially in perishable departments.
Getting back to some of our point of sale discussions. What are my top loyalty customers buying? What customers haven’t been to my store in a hot minute, and how do I get them back? These are all data points you should ask for and have easy tools to access. LOC’s newly designed eSuite allows you to view your data anytime, anywhere. Running reports on any of these points needs to be available and easily accessible.
Mobile offerings also play into this dance. So can I access my movement right from the sales floor? The answer should be YES. What else should I be able to do from the sales floor? Inventory count and checking? Price verification? Purchase orders? Label printing? Lane busting? The answers are overwhelming. YES, to all!
Once you have this data at your fingertips, now what?
Creating your imports from any data without spending hours formatting and building your own reports has never been easier. Maintaining your system and items should be an easy task. Likewise, building meaningful promotions for your consumer should be easy to design without being boring.
Last important details
Making sure that your store operations can be run effortlessly and efficiently is key. Knowing that a point of sale and back office system is a significant investment and touches every end of your store can make this a mountainous hill to climb. Ensuring that your software can handle your business needs today and tomorrow, regardless of how the markets change. Partnering with teams that know the industry and a network of experts will help you stay ahead of the times.
To find out how LOC Software can work for you, visit us at locsoftware.com or email marketing @locsoftware.com.
To learn more about LOC Software and Rene Stai, head of marketing, on our Experts page, click here.
