POSWizard

This week we will start the weekly round up of retail and point of sale news with an announcement from a Web POS company that will surely have brick and mortar retailers putting on their thinking caps. The second article comes from another announcement that PaymentMax, a point of sale payment solutions company has earned high marks from Inc. Magazine.

The last three articles we showcase this week way more heavily on the retail side of the roundup. Heading the article showcase is a very inspiring article from Bright Perspectives. The author, Bill Brown, a retail consultant promises to bring new perspectives to your traditional retail business. Then we go into a fascinating piece that gives you some sound advice from the world’s most successful businessman, Richard Branson. We end this weeks roundup with an article about cloud computing…if you’re unsure of what that means, check it out below, this is the future for many small retail establishments.

1. Point of Sale That Synchs Brick & Mortar and Online Inventory – The news of Shopkeep.com partnering with Shopify.com has many small retailers excited about the possibilities that they will be able to run their online and brick & mortar businesses from one location. ShopKeep is a web based point of sale software (see our review below) that shares a vision for retail businesses to be able to manage both their online and physical business with one easy to use software.

2. PaymentMax Merchant Services on the List of America’s Fastest Growing Companies
– PaymentMax, founded in 2004 provides merchant services for credit card processing at the POS. The company has continued to grow at a fast pace by offering a variety of payment avenues including cell phone technology. The company has found small to mid-size retailers and helped them enable their smartphones, iPads, ect for processing major credit cards. Inc. Magazine ranked the company #151 in revenue growth between 2006 – 2009.

3. The Future is Bright for Small Retailers – This inspiring article will have small retailers on the edge of their seats looking forward to the future. The article mentions the business growth of online retailers but insists there is still hope for the traditional brick and mortar retailer through adaptation and change. He states:

Do not listen to the doom merchants: the future is indeed bright for small retailers, but only for those who work smart and really “get” how to market their businesses effectively in this age of “mature e-commerce”.

4. Six marketing lessons from Sir Richard Branson – Who wouldn’t listen to some sound advice from one of the most famous entrepreneurs of all time, Mr. Richard Branson. In this great article featured at the Retail Customer Experience, Mr. Branson lays out six ways to compete ahead of the game. Richard Branson’s philosophy on starting a business:

Get the product right, put a great brand on it and then you’ll have a great success.

5. Why Cloud Business is THE Business Model for Small Business – If you have no idea what cloud computing is, you’re not alone. This fairly new term has a very simple meaning. Cloud computing is essentially “internet-based” computing and many small businesses are starting to lean toward the trend. This article will give you a Cloud Computing 101 tutorial that will have you using great applications such as Google Documents, Zendesk, FedEx and many more.