What are the keys to increase my organisations profits?

To get this result you want to either reduce costs or increase sales. Ultimately you will do both.

What many retail stores do not understand is that having the appropriate POS System (point of sale) you can acheive both.

A good POS System simplifies and automates tasks.

Managing the sale order process including stock requirements and dispatch processes is again all made efficient in a good POS system. All these and more drive down the cost of operating a business increasing profits.

How to upsell
Another area that a point of sale system does is show related product items so that during the sales process it prompts the sales staff to ask if the customer would also like to purchase a related product. We have all heard countless times the prompt “Would you like fries with that?”. All retailers need a pos system that makes this cross sell simple and efficient to implement.

Another important tools due to the rapid growth in online sales is integration with a online store.This is vital to help increase sales while making the management of the store simple and easy.

Gift card are convenient and very popular because when you do not know what you buy someone you get them a gift voucher.

Another important aspect is stock control software and managing your inventory. A good POS must manage your stock and make life easy.

What about PC equipment?

This depends on your application. If you are a restaurant or cafe you should consider a touch screen. A touch screen makes the sale process more efficient and means that you do not have the issue of the mouse and keyboard getting dirty or sticky from staff fingers involved in the preparation process.

If you have a more complex sales process then you may be better off with a standard keyboards and mouse.

Questions to ponder? How good is your current point of sale system? How do you grade your system against some of the above criterea? Is it time for a change?

To acheive this result you need to either reduce costs or increase sales. Ultimately you will do both. What many retail stores do not realise is that having the right point of sale system (POS System) you can acheive both. 

A good POS System simplifies and automates tasks. For example business owners spend countless hours working out what stock they need to purchase, where a good point of sale system that has re-order levels and quantities can enable staff to complete this task in seconds. 

Managing the sale order process including stock requirements and dispatch processes is again all made efficient in a good POS system. All these and more drive down the cost of operating a business increasing profits.

From the other angle a good point of sale system enables better customer service through supporting accounts, customer information on purchase history and areas of interest. This enables the sales staff to use this information to better assist the customer and to also cross sell and upsell. This all helps to boost sales and increase profitability.

Another area that a point of sale system does is show related product items so that during the sales process it prompts the sales staff to ask if the customer would also like to purchase a related product. We have all heard countless times the prompt “Would you like fries with that?”. All retailers need a pos system that makes this cross sell simple and efficient to implement. The power of cross selling and upselling can easily add 10 to 20% to your sales figures without needing to spend a cent on advertising, as the customer is already in the store.

Targeted marketing is an approach to target your customer and helps you analyze your database and develop the approach and materials to reach your customers. Integrated marketing is having the tools to maximise the results from your marketing efforts. Not all point of sale systems includes these tools but ideally a good pos system would have integration with a online shopping cart and ecommerce systems, mass email sending tools, customer loyalty campaigns, gift card, laybys and selling prompts. 

Questions to ponder

How good is your current point of sale system? 

How do you grade it against some of the above criterea?

Is it time for a change?

Stop letting your pos system or cash register hold you back from growth

If you can get most customers to purchase 1 or more items before leaving the store then you will dramtcially increase you sales and your profits. You have already done the hard work to get teh customer in your store, so maximise the opportunity. Any good retailer knows that this is one of the keys to boost sales.

So what are some of the secrets to increasing your upselling and cross selling using your point of sale system?

Upselling is get the customer to buy a better model or more of the item, while cross selling is selling related items to the items the customer has purchased. Fore example paper or ink catridges with their printer.

1. Related Products

A very important feature of a good point of sale system is the ability to specify items/product related to another product. For example if you sell the hamurger the fries and the coke are related items and the POS system should prompt your staff to mention this to the customer.

2. A customer display screen

This is an additional LCD monitor that faces towards your customers and display special offers and reminders in relation to product. This can be such things as buy 2 cans of soft drink for $x dollars and other deals that rotate in front of the customer. During the sale the point of sale shows the customer the items they are purchasing and the total, but either on the side or the bottom the customer display screen shows offers. The above 2 features alone can take you a long way to boosting sales by 10 or 20% with minimal effort.

The biggest mistake I see retail stores doing everyday with their POS 

One of the biggest mistakes I see retail businesses make today with their point of sale is to not record sales history against the customer.

What I do see is retails stores recording their sales using customer 'Cash Sale'. What this means is that you do not have a record of what the customer likes to purchase and their contact details so that you can better serve them and market directly towards them.

So how can I use my point of sale system as a data segmentation tool?

It is as simple as recording as many sales against the customers record rather than as a cash sale. To do this you need to incentivise your customers to identify who they are. The best way to do this is with a loyalty program. This way the customer shows their card and you can scan it and then record the sales history against their record.

Now you have this data the next step is using this information to run targeted marketing campaigns. Stay tuned for my next blog entry on how to run a targeted marketing campaign from your point of sale (POS) system.

Stock Control Software

So often you talk to retailers who are struggling to manageand control their retail stock. The problems they are having with stock aregenerally

·         - Stock being damaged

·         - Stock being stolen

·         - Stock being lost

·         - Inability to find where the stock is in thestore or warehouse

·         - Unreliable stock level data

So what is the solution?

The solution is the right stockcontrol software combined with disciplined stock control procedures.

Recently I was working with somestores who complained about their new stock control software not allowingnegative stock levels and requiring them to receive stock before they couldsell it. Their previous system had allowed them to sell stock even if the stockcontrol software was saying there was no stock or the stock level was negative.

The point is, if you want tocontrol your stock then you need to have stock control software that forces youand your staff to follow the rules. The moment a system allows negative stocklevels then you can no longer trust the system. A good stock control softwareensure you have the tools to accurately manage your stock.

What are the key components of agood stock control software system?

A.      A. Easy to use comprehensive product managementtools

This includes flexible pricing,category/department classification,  supportfor customer specific pricing and powerful re-pricing tools to make themanagement of your margins as simple as possible

B.      B. Purchase order generation and management tools

Whether you have a small or large productrange tools that show stock that has hit re-order levels and other stock leveland purchase order integration tools are vital in a good stock control softwaresolution.

C.      C. Incoming goods

Ability to select the linked purchase order,support for back orders and purchase order adjustments are all important.Another great feature in the PBSAPOS stock control software solution was theability to adjust the fixed retail price via the incoming goods screen. Therealso needs to be support for supplier returns.

D.      D. Stock take and stock adjustments

As stock is lost or damaged or movedbetween locations you need tools to make the stock adjustments to ensure yoursystem remains accurate.  In addition asimple to use stock take module is imperative in any good stock control softwaresolution.

E.       E.Stock Reports

It is imperative that you have reports onstock movement, stock sales margins, stock that needs re-ordering, stock takereports, stock that is expiring (vital for fresh produce stores) and stock thatis not moving

These are just some of the importantfeatures you need to consider when you look at stock control software.

The other aspect is that no matter how goodthe stock control software it is the user who has to manage the system. Thisrequires discipline. Good software control software should not allow negativestock levels but it still requires the users to input stock adjustments, toinput movement of stock between locations and incoming goods procedures toensure that what was ordered actually arrived. This is your responsibility.

I wish you all the bets of success withmanaging your inventory through using the above details to evaluate your stockcontrol software.