A recent study found that poor customer service costs American businesses $62 billion annually in lost revenue. Simply reading this statement should be enough to convince you that improving customer experience is an extremely high priority. But the question is, how exactly do you go about doing this? The simplest answer for a retail store is a seamless and quick checkout experience for your customer. Here are three great ways you can use POS to increase retail sales.
An interactive point-of-sale (POS) system can be an invaluable tool for significantly growing your business’s revenue. Removing as many obstacles as possible in the buying process is imperative for producing happy customers. In many cases, POS is the major factor that makes the entire difference. Many stores sell similar products. So what is different between a successful store a store that has failed? Typically the answer is centered around a customers experience with purchasing, loyalty programs, and how they are treated.
Not only will efficient POS software assist you in managing your day-to-day sales and inventory, but it will also assist you in expanding your customer base, which is essential to your business growth. When you hear about success stories regarding retail stores, use of a high grade POS system is common in the equitation. They are excellent at increase retail sales through a high-quality customer experience during their checkout process.
Imagine shopping for hours and then finding the POS not working or working slow. Who would like to wait at the billing counter for longer than they have to after spending time selecting the products that you want to purchase?
How Does a POS System Work?
How can you use a POS to increase retail sales?
The point of sale (POS) is the time and location that a customers pay for their products. POS software is used in retail stores to simplify the selling and purchasing processes. As a result, transactions can be completed extremely fast and it allows the cashier to service a customers needs in seconds.
A modern POS system consists of one main computer linked to multiple mobile or fixed checkout terminals. Businesses in various industries have different POS system requirements which may require a little bit of a different setup.
This type of selling system is made up of various pieces of software and hardware. These tools work together to enable businesses to conduct customer-facing transactions. POS setup in a company is primarily determined by the payment methods that your organization accepts and the functionality that you are looking to implement.
Important Ways a Great Retail Point of Sale Can Improve Your Business
POS speeds up transactions
Customers may become irritated if they are forced to wait in a long line to purchase products from your store. A dependable POS software will reduce customers’ time waiting to make purchases.
The system will also reduce instances of human error, which can result in financial losses. Installing a POS system that includes barcode scanning will improve payment speed, efficiency, and pricing accuracy. Customers are more likely to shop where they can be serviced quickly.
Any POS software that is slow or sluggish will diminish the customer experience. While a customer might be happy about the quality of your products and loved the prices that you have, in their mind, slow service and inefficient processes can drastically effect their attitude towards you in the long run. Avoiding these issues will help you keep customers for longer periods of time.
Seamless customer experience
Improving customer experiences through Point of Sale (POS) technology is critical for retail businesses to increase sales. To create a seamless customer experience, all aspects of the purchasing process must be considered, from the customer conducting pre-purchase research to ordering, shipping and receiving their goods, and the post-sale experience.
Most customers nowadays expect a seamless and integrated shopping experience across all channels. This is how smart retailers have created memorable experiences for their customers and strengthens their brand through word-of-mouth marketing.
Better Inventory Management Systems
Your store’s inventory can be easily tracked with a high quality POS system. It will allow you a real-time control of your inventory. Implementing a more robust inventory management system that allows you to monitor these types of metrics is one of the best benefits of a POS system to increase retail sales.
When utilizing a quality inventory management system, for items that already exist within your inventory, you have the ability to easily update quantities by scanning items to be automatically loaded into the POS. This will save a considerable amount of time compared to traditional inventory tracking and allow you to keep exact track of the items you have in stock.
Every time you make a transaction, whatever products are sold will be directly deducted from the inventory count, saving you time and effort.
Omnichannel Checkout
Due to the fact that much of the customer experience occurs directly in the store, your check-out process must provide a quick, agile, and seamless experience every time a consumer decides to shop. Point-of-sale systems that accept payments via mobile devices, tablets, and iPad’s can make a significant difference by allowing sales staff to move around the store and engage directly with shopping customers.
According to a Capterra study, retailers in the United States using a mobile POS system increased from 32% in 2017 to 46% in 2020, and this trend is expected to continue. According to the study, 64% of retailers surveyed believe that using a mobile point of sale system helps them increase sales, and 82% believe that having the mPOS allows them to provide seamless customer experiences.
Why is POS Experience Important?
Knowing your customers well allows you to easily encourage them to revisit and buy their needs. With so many shopping options and brand competition in the retail industry, creating a personalized shopping experience that converts regular customers into loyal shoppers is critical. POS experience is an effective way to accomplish this by:
- Enhancing in-store services
- Using optimized technology to streamline the payment process
- Connecting to the online ordering process
- Data collection and management across channels
Conclusion
A good POS system can improve your brand’s outward appearance and the in-store customer experience. POS captures valuable data about customers’ shopping habits and provides real-time reports, improving checkout performance and other operational efficiencies. So merchants should use good POS to increase retail sales.
Point-of-sale systems offer personalized discounts based on the customer’s purchase history, increasing customer loyalty, and can create repeat shopping. You should consider implementing a POS system that fits your business model is a worthwhile investment as it can help you grow your companies revenue while maintaining your sustainability.
