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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 MoreWhat could a quick view and single sheet of paper do for your business? Everything if this single sheet of paper can give you comparatives on vendors, items, classes, and departments. Which vendor gives you the best turn rates and sell-thrus and which department gives you the best return for you investment? Knowledge gained from your POS software will give you the information to make smart buying decisions. The typical retailer is overstocked by 10-25% at any given point in time, meaning that for every $100,000 in sales, there can be $5,000 to $25,000 (at retail) in excess inventory on the shelves. When you start looking at $500,000 in sales, the wasted investment runs into six figures. Imagine converting $100,000 of excess inventory into cash.
Controlling inventory investment is a primary reason retailers purchase POS Software/Retail systems. Properly “timing” inventory means gaining control over cash flow. A quality retail stock ledger that works hand in hand with your Open-to-Buy planning lets sales revenue pay for incoming merchandise rather than having to borrow money. Your Open-to-Buy plan serves as the “budget” for inventory, sales and purchases. The Open-to-Buy report is the “financial statement” for your inventory. With ProphetLine’s Open-To-Buy Module added to your POS software, you will be able to develop and execute your buying plan easily and accurately. With a properly managed buying plan, you can improve your stock turn rates, cash flow, gross profits and return on inventory investment. At the end of each month, you can identify and respond to trends as they develop. You can achieve optimum stock turn rates, while keeping inventories at the proper level to support expected sales.
You’ve always heard in retail that the customer is always right. Wrong! Most of your customers are always right, but there a few that can make your life miserable. The next time you receive a complaint from a customer, do a customer analysis on your POS software and find out what that customer has purchased over the last year. If all of his or her purchases total a small amount, they complain a lot and they have been sale items, you can take the complaint and throw it into the trash. If the complaint comes from a customer you find has spent $10,000 with you over the last year and the purchases were largely full retail, you need to call and ask how you can take their complaint and make it right by them. Good POS software can give you this information immediately and a remedy found that will keep the good customer happy.
POS software is always associated with good inventory and cash controls, but customer service is the difference maker. You can run a query on any period and find the customers that spent the most and deserve your full attention. How would you like to run a query and find all the customers that bought specific items during a time period and send them an e-mail informing them of complimentary inventory that has arrived and they will have a special showing. Now that is powerful marketing and can only be done when you have harvested the right information with the right POS software.
While printer drivers are becoming available for Windows Vista, a faster turn around is often needed. If you are trying to print to an Epson TM 88 POS printer and running Windows Vista, use the Windows 2000 drivers and have the abiltity to print now rather than waiting
The drivers can be downloaded by going to Epson’s support site. The site requires free registration.
When moving to a new Point of Sale (POS) Software system, most people want to move/convert data from their ‘old’ system to the new one. While this is possible with most POS Software systems, there are some things to consider and watch out for in order to make the move as easy as possible.
Label/Name fields for clarification – Although when you look at your data, it is easy to see which column is a department code, a retail price, cost, etc never assume other people will be able to distinguish the columns the same way. Always clearly label the columns to avoid confusion.
Verify data types between applications – If you used alpha-numeric values for such entries as department code, customer numbers, vendor numbers, etc. Make sure the new system can also use alpha-numeric. If it cannot, make a list of mappings to be used in the data conversion – A10 = 100, A11 = 101, etc.
Verify data as it is moved from one application to another – a common problem with data conversion is the data ‘changing’ as it is moved from one application to another. One common cause of this is data being exported to a text file, opened in Excel to verify/modify the data and then saved. Unless care is taken, Excel will set data the ‘appears’ to be numeric as a number field. This will remove leading zeros and cause issues if any of the data is alpha-numeric.
Verify hardware formatting with data – Barcode/UPC/EAN codes can be converted correctly and still not work as desired in the new POS Software application. This is usually due to hardware setup or (as stated above) data changing between applications. Barcode scanners can be setup to read or ignore check digits (as well as many other formatting options). An easy way to tell how a barcode scanner is ‘reading’, is to open Notepad, scan several items and compare the output with the barcode on the item.
In summary, verify your data and communicate in detail with your POS Software company before the conversion. You will benefit and save lots of headaches in the long run.
Many years ago, I owned a chain of specialty retail stores. The biggest problem was the ability or inability to hire good managers. Some managers were excellent at doing good work, but the stores never performed well. A few of my managers never looked like they were working hard, but they had stores that always showed good profits. The difference was that some of the managers hired, trained and maintained good employees and the other managers were afraid to hire someone with good skill sets and turn them loose because it might make them look bad. This last group of managers always looked like they were working hard, but they were doing all the work and the employees just watched and said ‘look at him go’. They were afraid to delegate and ended up doing all the work themselves and eventually would burnout. Never be afraid to hire people smarter and more skilled than you. An old saying goes, ‘A rising tide raises all ships’ and this is especially true with the good hires that make management look good.
After making the good hires, train them to do the jobs that are crucial to the health of your retail store. If they are good with technology, put them in charge of your POS software and other store systems. Those with the best personalities might be better served dealing with your clientele and handling your public relations. I had a friend once tell me, ‘It’s not the ones you fire that hurt you; it’s the ones you keep that hurt.’ Don’t be guilty of just holding status quo and allowing now-caring employees bring your business down, always look to up-grade and hire smarter people than you.
When you pick up the paper and read that the Dow is up or down, consumer sentiment is high or low, corporate profits are good or bad, they obviously aren’t talking about the small retailer. Corporate America’s stock value is directly tied to last quarter’s profits and forward thinking estimates of future earnings. Small retailers have a definite advantage in that they can think about long term planning without worrying if they are going to hit this quarter’s projections. Big business’s answer to more profitability is another round of cost cuts, which usually means job layoffs. ProphetLine is a small POS Software company that always plays to its main strength, which is being able to adapt quickly and nurture niche markets. Microsoft can’t be beat by our throwing more money at a marketing plan, but we constantly convert their customers to our POS software because we can cater to small business and their specialized needs. Small companies with fewer than 5oo people make up 52% of the private sector work force and were responsible for 51% of the nation’s gross domestic product, but when you read about innovation in technology, it’s always technology that only the big can afford.
Yesterday’s paper had a large article about price optimization software built by SAP and Oracle and the starting price tag was well into the millions. Small retailers can’t afford this, but they can take good data from their POS software, develop an inventory budget, build a purchasing plan and rely on the most important asset they have, their gut instinct and knowing their customer demographics. Wal-Mart tried to up-scale their apparel lines and better compete with Target. They later found out this was a mistake and it will take them better than a year to clean up the mess. You, the small retailer, can clean up your mistakes quickly with markdowns and sales and re-invest that money in quick turning inventory. Small business is always ignored by the government, corporate analysts and the reporting newswires. Flying under the radar can be good if you know your strengths and play to them.
If you have your choice between luck, timing and brilliance, take timing first, luck second, brilliance third and don’t ever confuse the three. Timing involves having inventory at the right place, right time and in the right quantities. Brilliance is saying to yourself that you can pick winners and losers without any help, luck is buying inventory on a whim and hoping more will sell than has to be marked down and timing is using POS Software with a built in Retail Stock Ledger that can give you exact data based on historical sales figures. You need inventory in quantities that maximize your turn rates and minimize your markdowns. The right amount of inventory at the right place, at the right time.
ProphetLine POS Software has an automated retail stock ledger that gives you comparatives on vendors, items, classes and departments. You can immediately tell which vendor gives you the best turn rates and sell-through. This information coupled with the automated open to buy furnishes you with the knowledge to make smart business decisions. The typical retailer is overstocked by 10-25% at any given point in time, meaning that for every $100,000 in sales, there can be $5,000 to $25,000 (at retail) in excess inventory on the shelves. When you start looking at $500,000 in sales, the wasted investment runs into six figures. Imagine converting $100,000 of excess inventory into cash. Take the guess work out of you purchasing decisions with POS software that has built-in open to buy and retail stock ledger.
How much does it cost is the first question asked by many retailers inquiring about ProphetLine POS/Retail Management Software. They see Quick Books POS software sold at Sam’s Club for next to nothing and ProphetLine POS Software at a much higher price and wonder why. Quick Books POS software is targeted to retailers that are making a move from a cash register to their first POS Software system and do not have a tight set of rules in place regarding the merchandising of their inventory. If you are selling T-Shirts in Times Square and a quarter million new customers come by every day, the need for strict inventory control and who your customers are, for targeted marketing, is unnecessary. Quick Books and Microsoft RMS have developed a horizontal POS Software product for retailers new to technology and with simple needs.
ProphetLine POS Software is designed for retailers in tough retail markets with more complex needs where capturing information at the point of sale is essential to mining more business from their existing customer base. ProphetLine POS Software is a modestly priced software system which caters to single store operators or small chains with fewer than fifty stores. You will find all the basic functionality in ProphetLine POS Software, and all the advanced features to insure the success of a small retail chain.
Now back to the first question, how much does it cost? We are more than the entry level products, but a lot less than most of the POS Software products we normally compete against. The most bang for your buck does not have to cost more. If you are not interested in improving your business processes, cost should be your main concern and a two hundred dollar cash register should work just fine.
