Discount
- Dis
- Dis
- Dis
- Dis
- Dis
[Via Don't Back Down]
POS systems buyer’s guide
I just found an excellent buyer’s guide for Point Of Sale systems over at BuyerZone. The buyer’s guide explains the benefits of an EPOS solution and talks about the differences between Retail and Hospitality and the various peripherals involved. There are tips about selecting the right POS dealer and they give some general pricing guidelines.
These pages are a good place to start when you’re looking for a new POS system, though I would not use the vendors they suggest at the end of the guide. I’d rather use the knowledge from the guide and go shopping locally. After all, support is what makes the difference, and there are not that many dealers in your neighbourhood.
Electronic Data Interchange
EDI is a general name for a number of techniques to communicate electronically (via e-mail or an FTP server) with your supplier. By linking your POS system of business software directly to the sales software of the supplier you save a lot of time and you have less errors in your supply chain.
EDI documents contain the same data that would normally be found in a paper document used for the same organisational function. An EDI document may contain a ship to address, bill to address, a list of product numbers (usually a UPC code) and quantities. It may have other information if the parties agree to include it.
Barcode scanning
Barcode scanning can save you a lot of time. That is what Joel Spolsky found out when he decided to ship his own DVD’s:
Barcodes are the greatest thing since sliced bread. I didn’t think we’d need a barcode because all we had to type was an eight digit order ID. Lo and behold, typing an eight digit order ID three thousand times adds up. The three day ordeal would have been a two day ordeal if we had thought to put barcodes on the packing slip and had a scanner to read it.
Scanning barcodes is the fastest and most accurate way to sell products at the Point Of Sale.
Migrating cash registers
The biggest problem for Point Of Sale system vendors are the traditional cash registers. Cash registers not only take a big part of the market, they also influence what shop owners expect from a POS terminal. Many shop owners switching from a cash register to a complete Point Of Sale simply want the same functionality and the ease of use of their old equipment.
I have done some POS implementations where I delivered exactly that: a POS system configured to emulate a cash register, with a few buttons on the sales screen to book sales on the various product groups, but without inventory control, reporting and all other features that make a POS system worth its money. The idea is to provide them the same way of working in a new environment to get the employees used to the new system. Once they now how to sell using the old-fashioned buttons I have them take an inventory so they can start selling using the barcodes on the items. Little by little they get deeper into the available features of the system, and the system becomes more valuable.