POS SYSTEM “Heart of today's Retailing”

Retail is one of the largest private industries in the world which significantly contributes in country GDP and employment generation. This sector shown tremendous growth in past 10 years from unorganized retailing to organized retail format. Increase in consumerism, globalization & liberalization of economy have encourage every big name of business world, manufacturers and even foreign investors to make their entry in retail format. With this growth and competition in retail market , retailer either big or small, national or international are heading towards implementation of new technology solution that reduce costs, streamline process and enables new sales & services opportunities.

Implementation of POS SYSTEM for handling day to day store operation is one of the greatest moves shown by the retailers in recent times towards organized, efficient and effective retailing.

What is POS SYSTEM? POS system stands for POINT OF SALE SYSTEM. A retail point of sale system typically includes a cash register (which in recent times comprises a computer, monitor, cash drawer, receipt printer, customer display and a barcode scanner) and the majority of retail POS systems also include a debit/credit card reader. It encompasses almost every function done at retail store from order processing, bill generation, inventory tracking, products ordering, reports generation to customer tracking.

It is now became the core management tool for every retail business irrespective of its size or nature of business. It provides new height; new dimension and new growth to retail sector and add new objectives of “Better customer experience” in retailing. It helps retailers to gain deeper insight into sales trends & customer preferences and helps them to manage their store operations in most efficient & effective way.

POS: Why it matters to YOU?

POS system became the new benchmark in all forms of retail from big retailer to small local retailer. It has several advantages:-

• Fast Check out Processing:- Transaction became instant & fast, bill generate within a click which reduce queue on billing counter thus makes customer happy and enriches their shopping experience.
• Visibility:- Wealth of information regarding every aspects of business operation from inventory, purchases, sales trends, sales figures etc are at the tip of the fingers of retailers which provide complete visibility & transparency to the mode of operation resulting in effective planning and decision making.
• Customer Retention:- It provides better and deeper insight about customer preferences; likes, dislikes, buying habit etc thus helps management in planning customer specific promotions plans & activities. Such personalized customer promotion plans enriches customers shopping experience and never let them go anywhere.
• Simplify inventory management:- Manual Inventory management is the most cumbersome & daunting task which required huge chunk of time and manpower. But efficient POS system adds ease and comfort in this task and make it work of few clicks and seconds. POS made complete inventory information available on the computer screen which gets updated with every single processing and purchases, making you aware of your inventory status at every time and saves your time and manpower. It will also help your inventory manager to make buying of right items at right time so that you never have to face situation of “Out of stock”.
• Report generation:- POS system helps in generation of customized detailed sales report. The software lets you analyze sales in different ways, such as weekly / monthly / day wise sales report, most sold items, least sold items, items sold by store if you have more than one, or even by sales clerk etc., it entirely depends on your choice. It helps you to access your business growth and future planning.
• Eliminate Human error:- It eliminates all sorts of manual errors in store operations thus saving time, money and resources. Staffs no longer have to dig themselves on pen paper work regarding calculation of bill, inventory, purchases, orders etc thus providing them opportunity to interact and communicate with the customers and deliver a higher customer service.

POS system thus drives your business toward profitability & productivity. It add value on customers shopping experience, improved staff efficiency, eliminate pen paper work, saves manpower, facilitates better & improved store management and last not least convenient services to customer which make them happy and satisfy.

Must Have Features Which Every POS system Possess

Every business need is different so every POS system cannot be same. It should be customize the way retailer want it to be in order to meet need and complexity of its business processing's. But there are few essential features which every POS System must possess, which are:-

• Quick and Easy check out process:- With support of barcode scanning & payment terminal, billing should be quick and fast at billing counter without creating much hassles. Billing task should get completed within few scans and clicks.
• Reports: It should be able to generate customize reports as per the needs and preferences of retailer.
• Accurate and up-to-date Inventory:- With every single transactions inventory should get updated on screen, providing accurate status of inventory so that right decision can be make at right time to meet customers' demands.
• Automated Purchasing:- With every sales inventory should get auto-updated and a purchasing order should get generated which remind retailer of the items to be purchased so that stock remain up-to-date. It should be able to set alert for items running low, add items when they come in and generate purchase order.
• Customer Account:- It should have safe storage of customer data which can be use to enhance customer shopping experience.
• Return Processing's:- POS System should be able to carry out return or exchange processing's.
• Integration with External application:- It should be able to sync POS data with external application like accounting software etc.

An efficient POS System is that which is able to grow with your needs. It should have flexibility of adding peripherals as business grow for example you can just login with POS software running on a PC with just drawer & receipt printer, later on you can add as your need demand like barcode scanner, credit card reader, inventory tag printer etc. depends on the need and the growth of the business. Regardless of business size an integrated POS system is must to be competitive & able retain customers

The efficiency of POS System is determined in terms of Return on Investment i.e. ROI, so it is necessary to look for the provider that has a reputation for substantial customer service and technical support. As well, you'll want to ensure that their product is specialized to be beneficial to the size of your business, and the industry within which you operate.