ProphetLine has been fully PCI DSS compliant for years and is now certified for EMV chip card, Apple Pay and NFC processing.
Learn More
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 MoreProbably nothing, except for the fact that all the concession stands and souvenir stands use POS Software. One day in the near future you will probably see the roaming concessionaires with wireless portable devices that can alert the concession stand when they will be out of product and when they will be returning to replenish. It will also include credit and debit cards for payment in the stands and pre-paid value added cards that can be purchased before the event.
This blog is just a lead in to wish you a great Super Bowl Sunday. This is almost like a National Holiday with all of the hype surrounding it. To cut down on the too many men on the field penalty, we can put RFID tags in the players jerseys and know who is in and how many. Monday I will try to blog on something a little more relevant to POS Software.
I recently exhibited at the National Retail Federation Show in New York. Mostly this is a show for the big retailers and the vendors that service them; like IBM, SAP, etc. Every now and then an attendee would come by and complain that no one would even talk to them because they were 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 as well as furnish them software. Small retailers also want a product equal to or better than what the big box retailers use, but at a price that can fit their budget.
Because most small retailers can’t afford a massive POS Software deployment, they must be willing to change and adapt their business processes to fit the new Point of Sale/Retail Store Management Software. All POS software products have strong points which made you select them in the first place and small deficiencies you were willing to overlook in the selection process to get the new and improved functions. To try and have the new software work just exactly like the old is a recipe for disaster. By the time you program for the old functionality, de-bug and go way over budget, the gains in productivity are mostly negated. The POS software you select to improve your business should be 95% of what you are looking for, straight out of the box and return on investment must be your top priority.
Look around at your retail store and one obvious conclusion you can draw is this: you are NOT Wal-Mart. But you do have more in common with the mega chain than you might think. You may be surprised to learn that a so-called “Big Retailer” tool, the computer, may bring you even better dividends than it does the big box discounter down the street. The right POS Software in the hands of a diligent retail store owner can give them a return on their investment in as little as six months and provide at least a 10 percent boost to their bottom line. Just installing a point of sale/retail management system imposes certain controls on your business that improve profitability. Spending the time to learn and take advantage of its many capabilities brings even more.
Of course, POS Software doesn’t do this all by itself. It takes commitment, not just of the dollars required (which you’ll quickly recover) but of the time and resources to learn about and use your new system. First make sure you select a quality Point of Sale System that has all the functionality you need. Then invest the time you once spent drowning in paper to making use of your new system, and you’ll soon enjoy increased margins, sales and profits — probably even better than Wal-Mart’s!
Every POS Software company has to continue their upgrade path to keep their customers on the latest and greatest. This said, how many of them keep their customers on a path that does not make all of their existing hardware obsolete? ProphetLine is a POS Software/Retail Store Systems developer that always makes an effort to keeps their customers on a backwards compatible path for all existing hardware. We have three printer set-ups which support older drivers for legacy peripherals, Windows drivers, USB and network support.
As a responsible POS Software vendor, we look at this as an opportunity to maintain good relationships with our customers. The idea behind this is to keep them on new, improved POS Software that does not obsolete itself each time we have a new upgraded product. The only times we have failed to keep backwards compatibility is when some customers have upgraded to a new operating system that did not allow for this backwards compatibility. It is much easier to not worry about programming around older legacy issues and write only for new accessories and peripherals, but would we have happy customers?
Working with leading edge, progressive retailers is where ProphetLine gets most of its ideas for future enhancements. We identify, spec out and release functionality that will enable small specialty retailers to better serve their customer base and identify new ways to improve profitability. ProphetLine was the World’s first specialty retail management system, which means we have had many years to write functionality into our product. Almost all of the enhancements we are currently working on are those that streamline current functionality and include more automation.
The newest release, available today, includes comprehensive support for customer marketing, merchandising and behind the scenes communications that replicates data back to corporate as often as needed. All of these features are meant to save owners and employees hundreds of hours on the technical side and put this time into taking care of customer needs. When our customers talk, we do listen.
The fear of a Wal Mart or Target store going in the same general area is something that will put fear in the heart of most small retailers. That should not be the case, because of the old clich that it is hard to turn a big ship. Small retailers have the ability to turn on a dime if they have reliable information on their inventory and services provided, they can make quick decisions. The only way to get this information is with a point of sale system that drives the data seamlessly through all of the reporting.
If Target carries Brand "A", then you carry a more exclusive Brand "B" and make yourself different. If your POS Software has built in email marketing functionality, you can notify your good customers in advance of the merchandise arrival and set up a private showing before you put the merchandise on the shelve. It’s all about the customer experience. ProphetLine can’t compete with Microsoft and their big bucks if we did the very same things they did, but we can give superior service and develop our software to give the small retailer an edge. A Retailpreneur’s most distinguishing quality is not the willingness to take risks, but the ability to put the past behind and seize new opportunities in the future.
U.S. shoppers bought gift cards in just about every type of retail store and shopping center this holiday season, spending a record $27.8 billion on the plastic presents, according to the National Retail Federation. By mid-January, though, their recipients had redeemed fewer than half – 37.3 percent – the trade group said Tuesday.
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 card 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.
Everyone always has a survey showing the importance of proper inventory levels. Retailers should improve customer service and product availability if they want fewer shoppers to walk out of their stores without buying, according to a Deloitte & Touch USA survey shared at the NRF Show. About 64% of those surveyed said the item or size they wanted was out of stock, 57% reported the register line was too long and 52% noted a sales associate was not easily available.
This all relates back to carrying proper levels of inventory as related to sales. If you never run out of product, you are over stocked and if you always run out, then you need to adjust your inventory levels. Overstocking can be as costly as being under stocked. You need quick and concise information to keep inventory with good turn rates, proper sell through percentages and as little mark downs as possible. The rest of the survey was based on good business practice related to quality customer service.
