Opening a Dollar Store - Cash Register Organization

Are you opening a dollar store? Then remember that checkout areas are the last thing that your shoppers will see when they make purchases in your store. The appearance of the cash register area is what those same customers will remember about your store after they leave. In fact, the appearance of that area may well determine whether shoppers return to your store in the future.

Leave a favorable impression on every shopper by getting organized. If you are opening a dollar store don’t allow clutter to accumulate around the check stands. Create designated areas for the tools and supplies that cashiers need to effectively serve store customers.

When opening a dollar store it is easy to allow clutter to build in the cash register area. Cashiers and other employees get busy and place items around the cash register while handling other tasks. Don’t allow that practice to occur. Adopt the philosophy that there must be a location for every item in the checkout area. Stand behind that philosophy by ensuring that every item is kept in its designated location and that other items are never allowed to accumulate.

Never allow other items to gather at the check stands when you are opening a dollar store. If customers change their minds about a purchase during checkout then designate a place for those items to be placed. Of greater importance is to establish a process and the expectation for employees to quickly return those items to their designated location on the sales floor.

Are you opening a dollar store? Make a lasting, positive impression on every person who enters your store. Leave a long lasting and positive impression on your shoppers who make purchases. Create a checkout area that is well-organized and clutter-free. While it takes some effort and discipline, the results are worth the effort.

To Your Dollar Store Success!

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Point of Sale Systems that Grow with You

Not all businesses grow up and become nationwide sprawl mall custom fair. But any solid business that can be replicated is a potential Star Bucks. I worked for a major nation wide retailer for three years. I actually didn?t work in one of their 400+ retail locations, but in one of the service centers that repaired the wide variety of electronics that company sold. They sold everything from washing machines to computer systems. I was a computer tech, beta software tester and the network admin for a location of seventy some employees.

While working there they spent a lot of time pounding in the corporate culture and the legend and myth of their humble beginnings. It was designed to brainwash us into loving the company and sharing in its success. They happened to be big on propaganda and a lot of silly micromanagement junk that almost ruined them during the time I worked for them.

Let me set the stage for you and tell you part of the corporate tale of this company that shall remain unnamed. They started as a music store up north a couple decades ago. Car stereos and music sales made for rapid growth. A second location was opened and also proved successful. Before long there was four locations and they expanded from stereos to all kinds of electronics and appliances. Then they sat stagnant for a while and one of the stores was wiped out in an unfortunate accident. Then without warning they bankrolled an ambitious expansion plan and a new corporate giant was born. New stores started popping up everywhere. They were growing at a breath taking speed and within a decade they had conquered America.

Move to 1998 when I had my interview and accepted a job that lasted three years and held so many responsibilities that many times I wondered if it was worth it. At this time a new fear was sweeping the nation and it went by the code name of Y2K. The company I worked for was in big trouble. Their point of sale software that had helped them create their empire had been developed without concern for Y2K. Limited tests showed that the software would fail in dozens of ways after January 1, 2000. I don?t know the final dollar amount of developing the replacement software but halfway through I remember the engineer leading the project saying they had hit Nine Million Dollars and it wasn?t even done yet.

I was lucky to be one of the beta testers and involved in the direction and development of the software. I learned a great many lessons during that crazy hectic time of insanity. The most important lesson is that when your business starts to grow it?s a whole lot cheaper to make sure your software is going to grow with you rather than to pay for it later. They survived the hit to their bottom line and the software, although buggy at first it was eventually ironed out and launched to all their locations before Y2K (but it was so close a couple people almost lost their jobs).

The Point of Sale software for any business is so critical that I can?t stress enough how much effort should be put into getting the right system. No one can foresee all the Y2K bugs out there and every software tool has its flaws. But businesses that don?t take their technology seriously are not the one?s that survive to the point where it takes almost ten million dollars to fix their mistake.

Please consider this article for publication in your newsletter or on your website. Permission is granted to reprint for free with author box and byline intact. Please send me a copy of your publication if you choose to include my article. TITLE: AUTHOR: Ed Duval URL: www.AndTechComputers.com

MAILTO: support@andtech2020.com

Author Box - ? Ed Duval (2006) Ed Duval is contract writer and software developer for www.AndTechComputers.com and Creator of the HotPotato Restaurant Point of Sale Software System. With over a decade of experience in software development he shares his unique insight on today's point of sale software systems.

Why You Need To Advertise Beyond The Cash Register

Advertising campaigns need clearly defined objectives, especially when the offer is a low margin sale on single (or a few) items. Most ad efforts by small to mid-size businesses leave the real money on the table. Here's how to extend your strategy beyond the initial sale.

Advertise Beyond The Cash Register
Most of the retail ads I see offer ?bargain basement? discounts with painfully low profit value to the seller. Sure, there?s the expectation that a buyer will make an additional purchase, but as someone very accurately said, ?hope is not a strategy?!

While it might be a moderately safe ?percentage play? to hope that a buyer will make multiple purchases?a more proactive conversion strategy will produce more impressive, and far more profitable results. Formulating longer-range objectives in all of your ad campaigns will, ultimately, lower your overall marketing costs by increasing the profitability of each campaign.

You Know They?re Coming, So ?Bake A Cake?
Attracting buyers isn?t the same as acquiring a customer, and your marketing strategy has to take this distinction into account. A business that?s not converting buyers into customers is just an endless series of promotions!

Why not have your salespeople ready with pre-planned up-sell and cross-sell strategies, as well as bundled offerings to go along with your initially advertised ?specials?? Granting authority to offer discretionary ?one-off? discounts to complete a bundle can add tremendous power to your sales force and turbo charge their effectiveness.

When an ad campaign is well thought out, your product offering gives a lot of clues about what the buyers who respond really want to accomplish. Instead of thinking about the products you?re selling, consider what problem your buyers want to solve as a result of the purchase.

When you think like a solutions provider, you can create upselling and cross-selling tactics in advance, and instruct your sales force accordingly. This is where discretionary ?one-off? discounts come in handy. Your sales staff can then construct a personalized bundled solution that may have otherwise been missed.

Show The Advantages Of Being A Customer
Do you sell to a return trip by offering a ?first time buyer?s certificate? that is good for some special offering if redeemed in the next 15 or 30 days? What about a ?bring a friend coupon? that may get a response from an additional buyer that your campaign may have either missed or failed to convince.

Your sales staff should have a range of 'bounce-back' options since the same offer isn?t going to be attractive to everyone. Just guessing by what is being bought at the time is a very inaccurate way to judge. After all, the guy whose buying exterior paint supplies for his home isn?t going to be doing that again for a long time!

Capture Their Personal Data
Do you enroll them in your automatic ?birthday discount shopping spree? program to capture their personal information? You?ll need it in the future to involve your new buyer in your relationship marketing efforts.

When you can correlate this data with their first purchase, purchase amounts, etc., you can begin to develop accurate individual customer profiles. As time goes by you?ll know the buying patterns and preferences that will let you deliver laser focused, irresistible offers that generate high volume, high profit responses.

The Takeaway
The deliberate planning of the micro-steps all along the conversion process will generate higher returns on your advertising investments and ensure a continuously widening customer base. You?ll soon see a dramatic upsurge in revenue that you may have otherwise thought impossible!

Kamau Jackson is a Chicago marketing consultant who helps business owners leverage their existing assets to dramatically increase profits?without increasing advertising costs. Get more info about online and offline small business marketing strategies at www.internetknowledgesolutions.com. ? 2006 Internet Knowledge Solutions.

Control Your Business With POS Software

Business has become competitive and complex these days. The branding, positioning, patronizing and believing are all aspects of a product which any business can scarcely ignore. However the controls do matter for effective monitoring and effecting the required checks and balances. This would become feasible when the information flow become smooth, error free, updated, relevant and conclusive to the run of business. Free POS software has become the most popular means of achieving this competitive edge.

A point of Sale system (POS) becomes essential to the business. The essentialities of staying put and even in competition is the ability to buy better, turn faster, market smarter with of course the ability to work efficiently forming the undercurrent. POS ensures all these. The system works on the principle that key to survival is profits and key to profits is awareness.

In today's times of automation, processed and classified information is a must given the complexity involved when managing a business unit. There are diverse departments in a business unit. Information trickling into and flowing out of these units are diverse and divergent. For effective monitoring and controlling, as also for coordinating and harmonization, it is imperative that information be without slippages, with of course, the inherent complexity. A search for appropriate software would not have come a day soon, what with multifarious attitude becoming a requirement.

Free POS software is the answer to the requirement and is hotly pursued by retailers. The software addresses the difficulty in handling finances which are ingredients to the success of any business. Moreover the software delivers the goods in less time. The software aids in monitoring and controlling inventory levels. This could result in better selection of merchandise and obviate out of stock situations. Merchandising efforts get stepped up when information related to customer purchase history is available. Indirectly sales become high and appropriateness of the software is realized.

The next area where free POS software is useful is in the critical and crucial area of customer service. Speed and accuracy are the watchwords for a business unit which free POS software takes sufficient care of. Commitments of special order get honored with timely monitoring.

Online enquiry systems facilitate ascertainment of out of stock items becoming available at other locations. Personalized service gets offered through procurement of customer specific information. Retailers can use POS software to manage stock levels at minimum and maximum so as to serve holding costs and costs of obsolescence. This would enable the retailer to balance inventory levels by deployments of stocks as a cost arrangement.

Manpower training and training of other sorts would get reduced upon using the highly functional and easy to use software. Double entries and errors of this type are reduced when the program's tight integration comes out effectively.

Free POS software does not require the user to have prior knowledge of say accounting or inventory. Information is required to be entered just once. The integration system ensures that it is placed at the placed needed to be. Workload gets reduced as also the associated costs.

The POS software helps managing profitability. The software is user friendly and is easy to learn. Integration with the required components of a system would make free POS software a coveted possession of a businessman functioning singly or as a part of a larger chain that aims in speedy, professional, personalized and accurate service. With free POS software having set in can a customer satisfaction and patronization be far behind?

POS software.

http://www.possoftwarefree.com