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The core goal of every successful business owner is to increase its profit by reducing operating costs while increasing its sales. Therefore, If you are thinking to start a new business or you want your current one to flourish then you need to invest in a good POS system. However, before you get started with your research, it’s is of vital importance to understand what a POS system is and how to choose the right one for your business.
What does POS Stand For?
POS stands for “Point of Sale”, which in essence represents the place where sales are made, which is traditionally the cash register. These types of systems are no longer stationary, instead, they’re mobile, cloud-based networks that perform a wide variety of comprehensive business functions. These usually include processing returns, scanning products, calculating taxes, printing receipts, and a whole lot more.
Now that we gave you a simple introduction to this term and its meaning, let’s now proceed on by explaining some other essential factors that play a major role in selecting the right POS equipment for your business.
What to Consider When Choosing POS?
Today’s point of sales equipment can handle every aspect of your business, which encompasses much more than just processing simple payment transactions. However, considering the fact that there is a wide range of many different POS equipment systems out there, how do you decide which one is the best for your business?
Well, whether you are on the market shopping first-time for a POS system or you are looking to upgrade and improve your already existent one, there are some essential aspects you need to consider. These involve, considering the billing and order processing factor, customer data management, choosing the preferred type of POS, the employee management factor, inventory tracking, your budget, etc. So, let’s have a look at each one of these aspects separately so you can get more knowledgeable before you decide to invest in one.
Features to Look for When Choosing a POS System
Choose From the Different Types of POS
There are different types of POS systems available on the market. Depending on your business needs you can choose to buy POS that range from simple processors to complex cloud systems which vary in their size and performance. Some of the most prominent ones include the mobile POS system, the terminal POS, and the cloud POS which vary in some of their performance features that also dictate their price. So let’s have an in-depth look at each one of them separately so you can choose the one that suits your business needs the best.
Mobile POS System
As its name suggest a mobile POS system or MPOS makes use of electronic devices such as smartphones, tablets, as terminals at which you can attach your credit card reader. They are best suited for small businesses and entrepreneurs, such as small retail stores, pop-up shops, and quick-serve establishments.
MPOS are mostly used for tracking inventory management, loyalty programs, processing different kinds of payments, sales monitoring, and much more. Moreover, they don’t take up too much space and allows you to attach other peripheral devices such as barcode scanners and receipt printers which make them highly affordable and convenient for usage.
Terminal POS System
Terminal POS systems is a terminal software/hardware-based system that involves processing card payments at retail locations. This type of POS equipment has extensive capabilities which included inventory management, analytics, and reporting, receiving payment receipts via email, CRM, and customer loyalty programs. Due to their advanced features and reasonable prices they are most suited for business such as restaurants, grocery stores, book or magazine stores, boutiques, salons, electronic stores, and other places.
Cloud POS system
The cloud POS is an online or web-based POS that can be easily used with your existing hardware such as a computer, tablet, or printer. These kinds of POS features all the functionalities of a terminal POS with the only difference that, instead of being installed on a server that is run by you, a cloud POS system is installed in data centres that are maintained by the POS vendor. They are suitable for all types of businesses, especially startups because of their tangible benefits in cost, simplicity, flexibility, and function.
Usability and Effective Employee Management
Spending countless hours of the day figuring out how something works can be frustrating. For this reason, one of the main aspects when it comes to investing in a good POS system is choosing one that is simple and easy to operate. This is a particularly important feature which encourages staff productivity. This can boost your staff satisfaction at work by helping them feel less pressured and perform better.
This is also very helpful in performing valuable employee management tactics which involve helping things like managing staffing levels, the employee working hours, and sales performance. Moreover, a POS system enables you to track down the employee activity by liking it with each transaction, so you have a better understanding of their productivity and work on developing useful actions to improve it. Along with measuring employee success, a POS system also allows for individual secure stuff logins, create and modify staff work schedules, assign job-based permissions and individual user permissions.
Customer Support
Knowing your customers and their purchasing habits opens up valuable opportunities for more personalized marketing which in turn keeps them coming back time and again. Therefore a point of sale equipment helps you retain your customers by storing the customer data and purchase history which can be used to provide a personalized experience to all your customers. This is a very useful feature in advertising as it provides insights on which customers may be interested in your sale.
Pricing
As we already mentioned there are a wide variety of POS systems that have some essential similarities between them, however, some of them have advanced features that others lack. They can come in several varieties, ranging from expensive ones that feature more advanced features to more mediocre ones that can still get the job done pretty well. This feature also contributes to creating substantial differences in the prices.
Therefore, having a good grasp of your budget is important when choosing a POS system for your business. This involves keeping an eye on your item costs and estimate your average sale. After all, you wouldn’t want to invest your money in a system that is too expensive but doesn’t perform correctly. In comparison to the past, nowadays POS systems have become much more affordable and it won’t cost you a fortune. This is thanks to the latest software developments that can easily be purchased at reasonable rates through only a phone call.
Depending on the hardware, software, and some other additional features that add to the price, they can cost anywhere from $2,000 to $20, 000. Point of sale systems intended for small businesses usually cost between $50-100 per month while for larger businesses and franchises you will likely have to pay $100-200 per month for the extra features and registers.
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