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ProphetLine POS has been our lifeline for seven years in our four retail stores. The software is robust and offers many more functions and ...
Read MoreMany small retailers that are just starting their business probably don’t have the knowledge or expertise to order that perfect inventory selection when first starting up. They will need to set a tight budget, probably leaner than they would like and make the constant adjustments as they have a better feel for what their customer base wants. A friend of mine, Alan Fisher, president of Retail Business 101, said buying inventory without a good plan was like throwing mud on the wall, some would stick, but most would slide to the floor. The mess on the floor is the overbought and bad selection purchases that now have to be cleaned up. If your initial inventory is not moving, make that first mark-down as fast as possible and re-invest that cash in inventory that the customer base you are building wants and needs.
Always remember in retail that cash is King, and you have to keep a close eye on cash coming in and going out. But until you have developed the instincts of a seasoned buyer and have established a good history through your POS software, always learn toward under bought as opposed to overbought. Effective inventory management is having the right products in the right place at the right time in the right quantities. You will learn this over time as long as you are conservative in your starting inventory.
If someone told you that good POS Software would put a lot of money in your pocket and you didn’t investigate how, wouldn’t you be short changing your business. Good POS Software has been proven to: lower theft and shrinkage, give you accurate pricing, eliminate inaccurate inventory counts, add gift cards to your product line, capture customer marketing information, ensure proper inventory levels and much more. POS Software needs to be thought of as a business necessity and not an expense. If you are one of the fortunate small retailers that can afford to lose this additional revenue, then you are in a great market. Good POS Software will help you get to the next level of profitability. The longer you wait, the more you lose!
When you are considering new point of sale/POS software or an upgrade to your current POS Software, make sure the POS Software vendor you use has a clear and stated path they are on that will get you to where you want to be and keep you there. Your small business is your livelihood, a way of life, a retirement fund and you do not need a total redo of your business processes every time you upgrade.. We would like to think, ProphetLine POS Software/Retail Systems can help you get you where you need to be and keep you there through a series of well thought out and implemented upgrades.
We spend all of our time trying to figure ways to enhance our POS Software to better enable you to maximize your profits. ProphetLine is not perfect, but we strive to make it better every day. When you purchase ProphetLine, you can have all the bells and whistles or pick only the features you need. We do not sell an entry level POS Software product, but function points that suits you retail genre. We build in all the functionality you would expect to find in quality POS Software, including accounting, customer marketing, internet communications and much more. Start your retail selling season out right and make a resolution to improve the quality of your business and life.
The answer on when is the best time to upgrade existing or new POS Software is NOW!!! Every day you wait is one more day of lost benefits from all the great new features that enhance the marketing and sales side of POS Software. Small retailers are coming under more and more pressure from the big box retailers and you stand around and procrastinate about good timing on the POS Software implementation. This is a sure fire plan for disaster and will do nothing except give your competitors more time to kick your butt. You have to differentiate yourself by better service, unique product lines and an atmosphere that makes a customer comfortable doing business with you and a good quality POS Software system is the bridge you need to make this happen. Making the customer feel their needs are being fully met through a pleasant and efficient shopping environment, knowing them by name and having the ability to quickly identify their product preferences. This last part can be accomplished by having POS Software that is intuitive and robust. Not surprisingly, the point of sale system has become the focal point of the retail operation.
Today’s point of sale/POS software has become instrumental in gathering customer data to use in the four major marketing decisions that store managers must make: product, price, place, and promotion. These are the variables that can be worked with to attract and retain customers. So back to my original question, when is the best time to upgrade POS Software, NOW, NOW, NOW, the longer you wait, the further behind you will get.
While gaining new customers can help your business grow, a lot of times it is not enough. Imagine gaining 20 new customers each and every month, but losing 25 existing customers every month during the same time frame. Just getting new customers would not be enough in this situation to keep your business going. You must find a way to gain more customers than you are losing.
This is where your Point of Sale (POS) Software can be a valuable tool. ProphetLine POS Software has integrated customer marketing. With the availability of customer purchases, user definable fields you can easily give your customers that personal touch that will keep them as a valued customer even if you don’t have the best prices in town. High quality customer Service is something we at ProphetLine know is valuable and is one of the reasons our POS Software makes it easy for you to give higher customer service to your customers as well.
There are many ways to use the Retail Stock Ledger built into ProphetLine POS Software, but the one often not used is the vendor comparative. When you carry inventory from different vendors for like product, you need to know how these vendors stack up against each other. If Vendor A gives you better margins, turns and sell-through percentage than Vendor B, you now have the information needed to approach Vendor B for better terms and pricing or you can’t afford to carry their line anymore.
Many retailers feel this is a cost of doing business if Vendor B is selling them high visibility, branded goods. If you are armed with instantly obtainable information on how poorly they perform against their competitor, they will work with you and probably be amazed you had this data available to you. Your relationships with your vendors must be profitable for both of you for this to be a win-win for both sides. If it’s not, the terms of the relationship must be renegotiated.
You can be sure that if Vendor B was not happy with their arrangement with you, you’d be hearing from them. If it’s not profitable for you, they need to hear from you. When POS Software takes your sales history and purchasing history, then automatically runs it back to the Retail Stock Ledger, the battle is won. If you don’t have this ability in your current POS Software/Merchandising System, call and find out what you are missing.
Most small retailers have one main thing to worry about and that is their inventory. Their inventory assortment tells the public who they are and quantity of inventory says if they will be profitable or not. Not enough of the proper assortment will tend to reduce the chances of your customers coming back and too much inventory will ruin your profits. POS Software with built-in merchandising functionality, like open to buy and a retail stock ledger will give you the information needed to make informed decisions on assortments and availability. The cost of inventory is the largest expense item on a retailer’s income statement. If not managed carefully, the cost of excess inventory can be the difference between a small retailer being very profitable and losing money.
Many small retailers think that they need more inventory to be sure they don’t miss any sales, but the truth is that too much inventory almost always will cost you more. When retailers bring their inventories in line, clean up their assortments and make it easier for the customers to shop, sales will go up. The cost of slower turning inventory is much greater than the cost of faster turning inventory. These costs happen from lost sales, lower margins and increased expenses. Retailers that properly manage their inventories, the assortment their customers want and not being overstocked are going to be much more profitable and good POS Software with built-in merchandising will get you there.
With today’s business being conducted more from a mobile view, it makes sense to have a POS Software terminal on a laptop platform. You can take it with you to trade shows and place orders on the floor, sell your products at a customer’s site and even tender the sale to a credit card using a wireless PC card. When you return to your store, you can remain on the wireless card, hook up to a wired network or use a wireless router with Wi-Fi connectivity. With ProphetLine POS Software, you can also use the laptop to create transfers or purchase orders in the warehouse, do customer sales orders and price quotes on the sales floor and use the laptop as a data capture device for doing your physical inventories with our built-in stock check functionality.
The best part of all is the price of a good laptop has gone down so much; it is now affordable for any retail business. Make sure you buy one with enough USB ports to handle all the peripheral devices you will be connecting to it. The next time you add a POS Software workstation, think mobile.
