POS Software

Radiant Systems, manufacturer of the popular Aloha hospitality Point-Of-Sale software announced a new add-on module for their software: Aloha TakeOut.

This new module enables restaurants to manage take-out orders more efficiently,
delivering faster service and higher quality food, creating an
exceptional guest experience. Features of the new home delivery order module include caller ID, an order management queue, internet-style searches for guest
names and orders, repeat prior order and future delayed order features,
and a robust guest database with multiple addresses and phone numbers,
VIP status, and a notes section.

XSilva announced version 2.1 of their LightSpeed point of sale software for the Apple Mac platform, fixing several minor bugs and adding refinements to Tax Inclusive support.

Furthermore, LightSpeed now supports the new Web Store 1.1 (sold separately) and a new matrix system for size and colour information. Another new separately sold add-on is On-Target Reports offering customization of the 250+ reports that come bundled with every copy of LightSpeed.

The availability of Mac OS X-friendly Point of Sale solutions is giving Apple VARs a new window into small businesses. Retail and restaurant outlets looking for good-looking hardware more and more buy the Apple designed hardware, together with POS software such as XSilva Lightspeed (I will blog about this product in a separate post later). Besides the Apple hardware and the POS software, Mac resellers earn extra money with networking and typical Point of Sale devices such as barcode readers and receipt printers.

Read more at Apple VARs Cash In On Point-of-Sale Solutions

MerchantOS is a web-based Point of Sale solution which I found after one of their people left a comment on this blog. Today I finally had time to have a look at it, and as it is web-based they have a far easier job than other manufacturers offering a demo on their site. Talking about their site, they also do a good job explaining the benefits of web based solutions such as location independent availability and low software installation costs.

[click to continue...]

This viral video was created by halo, manufacturer of a web based Point of Sale system. Though I doubt you can solve hardware related problems with a web-based solution, the video is funny enough. Besides that, they offer $10.000 for additional videos of people destroying their POS systems.

Dell will team with SAP to offer an integrated point-of-sale (POS) store solution, enabling retailers to utilize SAP for Retail software solutions on Dell’s Retail OptiPlex 745 POS systems and Dell PowerEdge servers. The alliance, which brings together the world’s biggest business software maker and the No. 2 PC maker, promises to deliver systems that help retailers run their business more cheaply and efficiently.

Enhanced POS features — including accurate and timely customer demand data, real-time inventory visibility and integrated returns processing — combined with seamless connections into core merchandising and supply chain processes, will help enable retailers to better track purchase behaviors, identify buying trends and process customer transactions more rapidly.

How loyal are your customers? Are they coming back because the way you treat them? Or Just because you offer cheap prices?

Some retailers go beyond the call of duty to make customers feel more than welcome in their stores. Some make them feel like guests. Furthermore, they may be pleased and satisfied with a particular visit, but it doesn’t translate into the same affinity and desire to return again and again.

Should you treat them as friends? A friendship is special things. People might go out of their way to see a friend. They care about them, whatever they might need or enjoy their company. On the other hand, a guest, in most cases, is unwelcome whereas a friend is not!

You need two to tango, right? Retailers must invest more time with their customers and get to know them and listen to their concerns in order to establish the trust necessary for a strong, loyal, long-lived relationship.

Loyalty translates to repeat business. Statistics show that a 5 percent of customers’ retention could increase profits from 25 to over 100 percent.

Retailers understand the concept of repeat business and want to do what they can to get it; however, they should look into turning their customers into friends rather than treating them as guest.

It takes patience and more than one visit to achieve it. Friendships are not built over-night, they need time to mature but they can have great benefit as long as you are honest and sincere. Cheap prices will not do the job.

For years several manufacturers have tried to sell web-based POS systems, but until now with limited success. The benefits of a web-based solution are clear: lower maintenance costs, easy to upgrade and above all accessible from anywhere.

But the downside of a internet based solution is equally clear: What happens when the internet connection fails? Yes, you’re out of luck, and have to fall back to pen & paper. This disadvantage has kept many retailers from going web-based, and rightly so, as internet connection do fail once in a while.

But now Google presented Google Gears. Google Gears is an open source browser extension that enables web applications to provide offline functionality using the following JavaScript APIs:

• Store and serve application resources locally
• Store data locally in a fully-searchable relational database
• Run asynchronous Javascript to improve application responsiveness

In short, Google Gears allows software manufacturers to create web-based applications that can be used off-line. Although Google Gears is still a beta product, there are already a number of sites using it. Now just wait until a Point Of Sale manufacturer implements Google Gears…

Today, Microsoft announces their latest product, Microsoft Surface. Surface is basically a powerful computer disguised as a table with a interactive surface. Surface automatically detects objects, and can interact with them.

One of the demo videos on the Surface site shows how this product can be used in a hospitality environment. The video shows a group of friends having a drink, and when one of the persons lays his credit card on the table, Surface automatically reads the card (how?) and displays information about the card holder:

The center of the table shows images of all the food drinks consumed at the table, and each person can simply drag an item to their credit card and split the bill:

Surface is a very neat product, but at $10.000 really only an option for very trendy places with few tables.