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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 MoreKeeping up with changing retail technology can be a costly investment, as retailers need to have the latest, greatest technology and not get antiquated. Your POS Software provider should have a well thought out plan for future updates that will enable their customers to stay on a path that will keep them ahead of their competitors. The transition from current POS/Retail Software should be seamless so that the only training required is on the new feature you are upgrading for. Many retailers don’t understand that keeping up and maintaining older POS Software is costing them more money than to replace with a new POS/Retail Software System that will be flexible enough to meet their needs now and in the future.
At ProphetLine POS/Retail Software Company, we will even give you a competitive trade-in from your old system to new technology that will streamline your retail operations and lead to: Smarter business decisions, better inventory control, minimize retail fraud, increase customer loyalty and those ever elusive, increased profits. New POS Software does require initial work, but the long term gains are enormous. We have a POS Software product to fit your budget!
Fraud can occur when an item is stolen and then returned. The thief returns the merchandise for a cash refund, gift card or has the money returned to a personal card that wasn’t used to make the purchase. A printed receipt from ProphetLine POS Software to an Epson TM88 IV thermal printer will put a barcode on the ticket that will bring up the original transaction. If they cannot produce this receipt, the POS Software can easily reproduce the original copy and returns the money to the card used in the purchase. If you are using bar-coded receipts, the customer using the fake receipt is stopped dead in his tracks. POS Software receipts with barcodes allow you to have in place a customer friendly policy that will not create any misunderstandings. Your POS Software created receipt speeds up the sale process and eliminates the chances of fraud, all for a more profitable business.
Several weeks ago, my DSL Internet service quit working at my house. I called support, which was located in India, and two hours later a simple problem was resolved. That’s not good service and I should expect better from any product, including POS Software that claims to have a responsive help desk. When you buy POS Software from a vendor that prides itself on great customer service, your experience will not have the frustrations and your business will perform better. Procedural issues answered promptly should not be a luxury, but a standard to expect. On-going training on your POS Software should also be an important issue to fully understand the features and functionality of the POS Software you purchase. You need to learn all of the POS Software capabilities after the initial set-up training; not just the getting started functions. Take your on-going training in short sessions on-line, which will give you a much higher retention rate than trying to absorb everything in a two to five day training class. At ProphetLine POS Software, we realize that one more frustrating thing is not needed in your life.
What are you waiting on? Everyone is looking for additional revenue and it’s staring you right in the face. The Wall Street Journal said that holiday gift-card sales would jump 25% to a record $35 Billion in 2007. Folks, that’s a ‘B’ as in billion they are talking about. That is a perfect reason to put a gift card program into your retail outlet. Not only is this gift card income, money you get to use interest free, but a majority of gift card users spend more than the balance on the gift cards and portions of the balance are never used at all. ProphetLine POS Software builds a gift card program into their product through their credit card processing partner, Mercury Payment Systems. If you use the credit and debit card functions of Mercury, you incur no transaction fees on the gift card usage.
POS Software systems evolved from mechanical cash registers in the early 1900’s. The early systems were little more than hand cranked making change cash tills that produced a ‘Z’ Tape. The cash register ‘Z’ tape was a journal that gave you a broad overview of the day’s transactions. The ‘Z’ tape did not give you a lot of in depth information, but was the start of departmental reporting and exception reporting.
ProphetLine POS Software still produces a similar report that gives you a five second overview of your store activity. Some functions and ideas are still relevant and have stood the test of time. The first computer-based POS Software systems were introduced in 1973 by IBM, which were large mainframes with proprietary client/server software. That same year was also the beginning of UPC/EAN barcode readers and in 1986; IBM introduced PC-based POS Software systems.
I guess the point of this blog is that most of the POS Software ideas have been around for a long time, it’s the speed and how you use the information gathered that is important and is it affordable to small retailers. Retailers need to do what they do best, which is be on the floor selling, and not be confined to a computer in the back. Your POS Software should do more than just simple point of sale tasks and fully integrate all the essential store functions. Even small retailers can now expect fully integrated accounting, inventory management, open to buy forecasting, customer relation management (CRM), integrated credit, debit, gift card service, rentals, and small business financials. Because of this wide range of functionality, today’s POS Software is truly your full functioning Retail Management System.
When you are looking for the good or bad in your retail business, first look at it from a broad perspective. Good POS Software should have some reporting views that allow you to look at the overall health of your business at a quick glance. This quick glance is a departmental view that gives you a comparative on how each department is contributing to the company profits when compared to the overall percentage of investment in each department.
A good business person cannot micro manage from the item level. ProphetLine is constantly finding ways to make available valuable information for the busy small business person so that they do not have to sit behind their computer all day. All of these new reports are based on departmental and class comparatives that derive their information from the comprehensive Retail Stock Ledger. ProphetLine POS Software puts you on the retail floor taking care of your customers, not stuck in your office.
Most of the calls we receive inquiring about POS Software comes from small retailers with limited budgets, but have the same problems that the big retailers have. They complain that most POS Software companies will not even talk to them because they are a small retailer. That is the exact reason we specialize in small retail stores. You can call us about any problem that you are having and you will get someone that cares. Small retailers need to select a POS Software company that can act as their technology staff and consultant them on correct retail practices that put them on a level playing field with the big guys, all on a limited budget.
Because most small retailers can’t afford a huge staff for implementing and maintaining new Point of Sale (POS) /Retail Management Software, they will need to rely on a company that looks at their customers as partners in their business. All POS software companies have their strong points which made you select them in the first place, but the difference is how they handle calls about procedural issues and adhering to good business practices.
POS Software doesn’t do everything by itself; it takes a partner to help you. Make sure you select a quality Point of Sale (POS) System that has all the functionality you need and the support you expect. Then invest the time you once spent drowning in paper to making use of your new POS Software, and you’ll soon enjoy increased margins, sales and profits.
Alan Fisher, President, Retail Business 101
This is an important retail distinction that your POS Software system should handle properly. A markdown is a devaluation of a product based upon its inability to be sold at the original planned selling price. A discount is a reduction in the price of an item or transaction based upon the customer making the purchase. Examples of this would be employee, senior, and frequent-buyer discounts.
If you use the retail part of your POS Software system for analysis and making decisions, the inability of the system to properly account for this could lead to bad decisions. Let’s say that your buyer finds some really great shirts at a cost of $20 with a planned selling price of $50 (60 % IMU).
However, several employees find these same shirts to their liking. With an employee benefit of cost plus 10% for personal purchases, several of these shirts were sold at $22. Later, the buyer performs an evaluation and discovers that ending gross profits were closer to 35% instead of the planned 60%. Since the POS Software system could not distinguish between markdowns and discounts, inaccurate information was given to the decision-maker. Perhaps the buyer should have been buying more of these shirts, but his POS Software said it had poor gross profits.
Several years ago, a good friend, who was director of golf of a resort in the US, called me to say that his buyer was under the gun due to lower than expected gross profits. I asked him if his POS Software system could distinguish discounts and markdowns and he said no. I suggested that he take all employee discount transactions, require that they take place on one day of the week, and that they be entered in one transaction at full price with a lump sum item reducing the amount collected.
After seeing the true picture, it turned out that the buyer was exceeding expectations. Hopefully, this person never found out how close to termination he/she was. Furthermore, it was discovered that some employees were going overboard with purchases and selling to friends. While not illegal, it violated the spirit of the benefit and the policy was changed to limit purchases for personal use.
If your POS Software does not handle this, then discuss a workaround with them until it can be fixed. As I said earlier, the inability to handle this results in inaccurate information.
