Point Of Sale Systems: How to Choose a Dealer to Buy From

Given that a point of sale (POS) system is critical to your business, choosing a dealer to buy from is a very important decision. In some ways, the dealer is a more critical factor than the actual hardware and software.

So how do you zero in on the right dealer? Here are some of the things you should look at.

* The dealer’s experience should play a big part in your decision. If you run a fine dining restaurant with up-market clientele, your business needs are vastly different from someone else’s who runs a self-service cafeteria. A bookstore has different needs than a dry cleaning outlet.

Make it a point to investigate what experience the dealer has in your specific industry. And for how long they have been dealing with your industry.

* If the dealer does have experience in your industry, ask for references from within the industry, or in closely related operations.

Ask these references questions about all aspects of their POS system experience. What is it they would have done differently in choosing and utilizing their equipment? What is it they don’t like about the dealership / choice of system?

Also find out if they know any other users who are served by this dealer. You may find that people not directly referred by the dealer tend to be more forthcoming about the pros and cons of the equipment and the dealer.

* A POS system quickly becomes indispensable to your operations. Any downtime is usually a very serious affair and may affect your business in many ways. That’s why support is a critical factor.

Determine what level of support you will need. Will you need 24 hour on-site support? How long can you afford to run without a live POS system?

Sit down with the prospective dealer and get a detailed understanding of the support they offer. Perhaps they initially provide phone support. If that doesn’t solve the problem, they may send support personnel over. And if the problem can’t be rectified immediately, find out if they will be able to give equipment on loan till your system becomes functional again.

Ask to see a copy of the service contract and scrutinize it carefully.

* Request the dealer to give you a demo of the equipment they are proposing to install for you. The demo could be done at your site or theirs. Go along with some of the actual end users in your organization.

A hands-on trial is an excellent way to gauge what you are getting into, both in terms of the equipment itself as well as how the dealer utilizes it.

* Get a sense of the dealer’s installation procedures. Do they have a one-size-fits-all approach? That could be risky with something as critical and complex as a POS system.

The best dealers will make a detailed study of your infrastructure, inspect your power lines and in general, get an excellent grip on your needs and on your present situation before recommending a system.

The initial days after installation are critical, to ensure that the system functions as intended. Will the dealer’s personnel be looking in often for the first two weeks to a month to ensure that everything is working fine and to answer the questions that will inevitably arise?

The above tips should help you determine which POS system dealer is the best fit for your business needs. Preparing well at the pre-purchase stage can save you endless frustration later on.

Mark Henry is a systems consultant and has written on POS equipments, tips for choosing the right point of sale system, how point of sale equipment needs to fit in with the business environment and other related topics.

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.

Types of Point Of Sale Activation.

From : intelecard.com.

POSA is not only about activation, it also refers to balance inquiries, refunds, voids, refresh, report printing and can even include services, such as real-time web-based queries. There are two types of POSA available in the market, online solutions and offline solutions.

Online solutions

The term online does not refer to the Internet. An online solution is any technology that requires the POSA device in a store to communicate with the stored value platform at the time of sale. This type of solution involves reading data off a preprinted card and using that data to identify and manipulate a specific stored value account on the platform. The data on the card is usually stored on a magnetic stripe or encoded in a barcode on the product packaging. Either way, at the time of sale the data is read by the POS device and put into a data packet that is sent to the platform as part of an electronic transaction. Sending this packet of data at the time of sale is what specifically defines an online solution.

A communication link or "line," hence the term online, must be established between the POSA device and the platform where the stored value account, or PIN, resides. The POSA device can be a stand-alone POSA terminal or logic integrated into previously installed store equipment, such as credit card processing terminals. There are many different types of communication links and technologies, but for the purpose of this discussion I will illustrate online POSA by discussing two common types of technology, host-to-host and dial up. The distinguishing difference between host-to-host communication and dial-up communication is that one is always connected while the other is used only as needed. Large national retailers who have extensive technology facilities connecting their stores to a central corporate IT location can, and usually do, implement host-to-host connections.

This contrasts with smaller chains or single retail sites that must use the modem in their POSA device to dial the platform on an as-needed basis. A host-to-host solution is always connected. Dial-up communication is established and closed on a per-transaction basis. The point is that implementing online POSA technology requires the ability to support multiple communication mechanisms to the platform, including host-to-host and dial up.

Offline solutions

Offline solutions are the opposite of online, meaning that they do not require the POSA device to communicate with the platform at the time of sale. There is no such thing as an offline host-to-host POSA solution. Additionally, any offline POSA solution not have a PIN-printing solution.

Most PIN-printing solutions print the entire card on blank card stock at the time of sale. Others print only the PIN onto pre-existing cards, while another type of offline mechanism uses preprinted PINs in sticker form that are affixed to preprinted card stock at the time of sale. All offline POSA mechanisms give the retailer a secure way to sell stored value products without the need for the POS device to connect to the stored value platform at the time of sale.

PIN-printing technologies store active PINs and other information in the memory of the POSA device. When a stored value product is purchased, the required information is printed onto card stock or receipt paper. The PIN is already active in this type of POSA mechanism, so there is no need for technology to communicate with the platform for every sale. Instead, at the end of the day these devices typically upload their daily sales totals by dialing into a computer server that collects the data and also downloads more active PINs.

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.

Restaurant Inventory Software

Marketing is the buzzword when talking about restaurant inventory software. Marketing starts with the determination of consumer wants and ends with the satisfaction of those wants. The concept puts the consumer both at the beginning and at the end of the business cycle. It stipulates that any business should be organized around the marketing function, anticipating, stimulating and meeting customer requirements. The customer, not the corporation has to be the center of the business universe.

Restaurant inventory software cannot succeed by supplying products and services that are not properly designed to serve the needs of the customers. It proclaims that the entire business has to be seen from the point of view of the customer. In a company practicing this concept, all departments will recognize that their actions have a profound impact on the company?s ability to create and retain a customer. Every department and every worker and manager will ?think customer? and ?act customer?.

The other distinguishing feature of restaurant inventory software is integrated management action. Integrated management action simply means that all the different functions of the business must be tightly integrated with one another, keeping marketing as the pivot. This is essential because every function has a bearing on the consumer, and the aim is to see that all the functions lead to a favorable impact on the consumer. For this to happen, all functions have to be integrated and properly aligned with marketing.

In organizations that do not practice integrated management, the different functions of the organization are preoccupied with the optimization of their specific activities, often at the cost of optimization of the overall result. Consumer satisfaction, which is a major theme of restaurant inventory software, is again not an end in itself. The concept does not preach that a firm must generate consumer satisfaction and forget the other goals of the organization. Instead, it treats consumer satisfaction as the pathway to the attainment of all the goals of the organization.



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