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Just as smart phones have become consumers’ personal shopping assistants, yesterday’s fixed function POS systems have transformed into multi-tasking tools that can improve customer satisfaction, mitigate risk, and boost sales and profits. Here’s how POS technology improvements can help your retail business get ahead:
Increase customer satisfaction:
Modern c-stores must be able to integrate business processes with mobile devices to support omni-channel marketing, mobile payment options, and loyalty programs to remain competitive. Today’s customers are looking to access their favorite stores on mobile apps and expect to be recognized for their loyalty and receive personalized offers regularly.
The front-end checkout is where customer satisfaction lives. As the only area where a customer must have an interaction with an employee, the checkout is the center of business transactions within a store. However, some tech innovations, like autonomous POS terminals, are eliminating the need for employee involvement at all. That means that investing in customer-facing marketing activities like mobile apps and loyalty programs is more important than ever.
Manage risks:
According to the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS), an average c-store selling fuel has around 1,100 customers per day, or more than 400,000 per year. “Cumulatively, the U.S. convenience store industry alone serves nearly 160 million customers per day, and 58 billion customers every year,” NACS data shows. That volume creates an environment ripe for compliance risks and inventory shrinkage — things state-of-the art POS technology can ameliorate.
Intelligent POS systems help increase store productivity and reduce operational risk. Features such as an automated lottery management function that tracks ticket inventory and sales by ticket number and interconnected sales data and video footage help to reduce the risk of shrink, or theft. Furthermore, features such as ID scanning and the ability to enter customers’ birthdates when purchasing age-restricted products like alcohol and tobacco reduce the risks of losses due to compliance errors.
Maximize profits:
Stores armed with POS systems that integrate inventory and pricing functions exhibit an increase of efficiency that saves time and money. Cloud computing can help businesses simplify supply chain management, decrease overhead costs, and reduce wasted store and shelf space. Technology can optimize these procedures, saving retailers time and making fewer errors.
A feature-rich POS system serves as a tool to help maximize profits. Functions such as promotion and merchandising support tracks inventory levels and margins automatically to measure effectiveness of promotional programs. Inventory optimization and control functions eliminate dead items and overstocks by determining optimal stocking levels and recalculating inventory to quickly spot slow-moving items. As a result, retailers can sell more of the most popular and most profitable items and eliminate inventory that doesn’t sell as well.
As technology evolves, and customer expectations with it, retailers are increasingly looking for ways to innovate and reach a tech-savvy audience. These POS innovations, all available with SmartPOS, can help. To learn more about what SmartPOS can do for your business, schedule a demo with our team.
